New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh police registered a case and arrested Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra over apprehension of breach of peace, while Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel was prevented from coming out of the city airport to meet her.

Uttar Pradesh has seen widespread protests over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence and the government has imposed several prohibitive orders around the state.Detained on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri, Vadra has been in custody for a day already. She has said that no notice or copy of the FIR has been provided to her even after her 38-hour detention and that she was not allowed to meet her legal counsel.

Vadra

In addition to the case against Vadra and 10 others under sections related to preventive detention “due to apprehension of breach of peace,” Uttar Pradesh police has also filed a case under Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) sections 151, 107, 116 (all related to preventive detention due to apprehension of breach of peace) against Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and party leader Deependra Hooda. 

“Total 11 persons have been arrested by us. On Monday around 4.30 am, Priyanka ji was stopped while on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri. We told her that you should not go there as the situation is not fine and section 144 CrPC is in effect. She did not listen to us and in proper security presence, we had to take her to a local guest house,” said Hargaon station house officer (SHO) Brijesh Kumar Tripathi, according to Indian Express.

“These are preventive sections. Once we get assurance that there would not be violation of peace by them these sections will be removed,” Sitapur Sub-divisional Magistrate Pyare Lal Maurya said.

Vadra said her counsel had been standing at the gate of the compound since Tuesday morning.

“Presently I am not going into the details of the completely illegal physical force used on my colleagues and me at the time of my arrest as this statement serves merely to clarify the continuing illegality of my confinement at the PAC compound in Sitapur, UP,” she said.

“I have not been served with any order or notice. Nor have they shown me an FIR. I have not been produced in front of a magistrate or any other judicial officer either. I have also not been allowed to meet my legal counsel who has been standing at the gate since morning,” the Congress leader also said.

Gandhi Vadra has been kept in detention since Monday morning after she wanted to meet the families of the victims of the Lakhimpur clashes.She said she has seen a portion of a paper on social media in which the authorities have named 11 people, including eight who were not even present at the time she was arrested.

In fact they have even named the two persons “who brought my clothes from Lucknow on the afternoon of October 4”, she said.Vadra said she has been placed under arrest as verbally informed to her by the arresting officer DSP Piyush Kumar Singh, CO City, Sitapur, under Section 151 at 4.30 am on October 4.

Congress workers protest outside the 2nd Battalion PAC in Sitapur where Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is allegedly detained on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri. 

“At the time I was arrested I was travelling within the district of Sitapur, approximately 20 km from the border of district Lakhimpur Kheri which was under section 144. However to my knowledge section 144 was not imposed in Sitapur,” she said.

She said she was travelling in a single vehicle with four other persons, two local Congress workers, Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda and Sandeep Singh and no security car or Congress workers other than the four persons were accompanying her.

“I was then driven to the PAC compound, Sitapur accompanied by two female and two male constables. Having been brought to the PAC compound, no further communication regarding the circumstances or the reasons, or the sections under which I have been charged have been communicated to me by the UP Police or administration until now-38 hours later at 6.30 pm on October 5, 2021,” she said.

A number of Congress workers have come out in support of her and have demanded her immediate release so that she can visit the families of the violence victims and share their grief.

Congress workers also staged a candle march outside the guest house in Sitapur where she has been kept. They took out the march in solidarity with her and the farmers protesting in Lakhimpur this evening.

An image from the Lucknow airport, tweeted by Baghel. 

Baghel

Baghel sat on a dharna at the Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport after he was stopped from going to the Uttar Pradesh Congress office and Sitapur, where Vadra is detained. 

Eight people died and several others were injured on Sunday in a clash. Four of the dead were farmers, who were allegedly knocked down by vehicles driven by BJP workers travelling to welcome Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to an event in the area. It has been alleged that one of the cars had Union minister Ajay Mishra’s son in it. However, the minister has denied it.

“I am being stopped from going out of Lucknow airport without any orders,” Baghel wrote in a tweet, in which he posted a photo of him sitting on the floor at the airport.“Why am I being stopped? I am not going to Lakhimpur where there are prohibitory orders in place. I am only going to PCC (Congress office),” he asked the police personnel.

Baghel uploaded footage of him attempting to reason with police

https://twitter.com/i/status/1445299824799064064

Talking to mediapersons at the airport, Baghel said he does not plan to go to Lakhimpur Kheri but to the Congress office where he was scheduled to address a press conference later in the day and to meet the party national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra at Sitapur.

The Uttar Pradesh government had on Monday itself asked the Lucknow airport authority not to allow Chhattisgarh chief minister and the Punjab deputy chief minister who had to visit Lakhimpur Kheri in view of the violence that erupted there.

“After the incident in Lakhimpur, the district magistrate has imposed prohibitory orders there to maintain law and order. It is requested that you should not allow Chhattisgarh CM and Punjab deputy CM at the CCS Airport in Lucknow,’ Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi had said in a letter dated October 3 to the Airport Authority of India (AAI).

Prevented from going into Uttar Pradesh as well, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Tuesday held a silent protest at Gandhi Smarak Bhawan in Chandigarh. He said he will meet Union home minister Amit Shah and raise the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.