(Representative image)

MEERUT: At a time when the entire country is making preparations to celebrate Independence Day, members of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha waved black flags to mark their 70th ‘Black Day’ and protest against the Constitution of India at the organisation's office on Sharda Road in Meerut on Sunday.

The leaders of the Hindu outfit claim to have been observing this day as ‘Black Day’ for the past 69 years to put forward their demand for declaring India as a “Hindu rashtra” and protest against the constitution that declares India a secular country.

“It was a black day for India when the British and some Indian leaders agreed to divide the country on the basis of religion, but Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru did not allow four crore Muslims to leave India thereby leaving the dream of a Hindu rashtra unfulfilled,” claimed Pandit Ashok Kumar Sharma, national vice-president of Hindu Mahasabha.

Abhishek Aggarwal, a member of Hindu Mahasabha, said, “We do not believe in the Constitution of India and we have been protesting against it for the past 69 years. Secularism doesn’t exist in India and that is why we mourn the Constitution.”

"Earlier, arrests used to be made whenever black flags were waved outside our office, but after 1987, the court refused to let cops arrest our protesters," Sharma told TOI.