Lucknow: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi reached Azamgarh on Wednesday to meet the people injured in lathicharge during the recent anti-CAA protests last week.
ON the lines of Saheen Bagh, women of Bilariaganj town of Azamgarh had started anti-CAA protest on 5th February.
To curb the dissent, the local police reportedly resorted to firing tear gas shells and lathicharge in which some women protesters sustained injuries. Over 19 protesters were arrested and imprisoned for sedition and other serious offences.
Some protesters charged that the cops also pelted stones. The cops have denied these allegations.
Priyanka’s Azamgarh visit assumes significance as she had come days after the local Congress launched poster attack on Samajwadi Party. The Congress members had put up posters questioning SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who also represents Azamgarh in the Loksabha, over his silence on the police excesses on women in his constituency.
The SP had demanded an apology from Congress and had claimed contrary to the Congress’s claims, Akhilesh Yadav had in fact condemned the incident and had also formed a panel to probe the incident.
Priyanka’s outreach in SP’s den shows how Congress is trying to make inroads in the new territories to surpass its former alliance partner with which it fought 2017 Assembly elections. The tie-up failed and the SP was uprooted from the State by the BJP.
Not just personal meetings with the anti-CAA protesters, the Congress is taking efforts to nail the Yogi government on police brutality.
Priyanka and her brother Rahul Gandhi had approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with complaints of police brutality on the anti-CAA protesters in the state.
The body has issued notice to the Yogi government on the issue early this week.
