Panthers Party protested over the issue of non-payment of honorarium to the Village Defense Committees (VDCs), which are responsible for security in remote and rural areas of the Jammu division. The activists raised slogans against the BJP, alleging that from time to time the BJP has been using VDC for its political gains. Activists led by party chairman Harshdev Singh reached the exhibition ground near the Press Club and demonstrated there. Harsh Dev Singh said that the VDC was formed to curb terrorism in rural and remote areas.

Since 1996, VDC has been doing its job well. When terrorism was at its peak, the youth took care of security. 4248 VDCs were functioning in ten districts of the Jammu division with more than twenty-five thousand people. There are three SPOs with each VDC and people from other regions. SPOs continued to receive salaries and their salaries also increased, but others associated with VDC did not receive an honorarium. The arrears of VDC members should be released without delay. He alleged that BJP used some VDCs even during its election campaign but VDC was not provided facilities. Many VDC members were in the BPL category but the former PDP-BJP coalition government was voted out of BPL. Facilities like scholarships are also not available under BPL.

Harshadev Singh urged the Lieutenant Governor to pay the arrears of honorarium to the VDC, which has been handling security for over two decades, combating terrorism. We should respect VDC. The protesters included Rajesh Padgotra, Purushottam Parihar, Sham Gorkha, Surendra Chauhan, Rampal Sharma, Nirmal Kishore, Ravindra Jammwal, Bhagwan Singh, Rachpal Singh, Vikram Singh, Gurdeep Singh, Dinesh Kumar, and others.