BJP files police complaint against Akhilesh Yadav, police for lathi-charge on protesting members

Lucknow: A day after a protest outside the Vidhan Bhawan, BJP on Thursday filed a police complaint demanding FIR against Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and police officers for “brutal lathicharge” on party workers. [caption id=“attachment_2976620” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The police used water cannons to try to disperse the protesting BJP workers. PTI[/caption] BJP’s state unit chief Keshav Prasad Maurya told reporters that party MPs, MLAs, office-bearers and workers were ‘brutally cane-charged’ by police while they were protesting the declining law and order situation in the state. He said, following the incident, a complaint has been registered by state BJP vice-president Ramnaresh Rawat at Hazratganj police station. “Scores of workers are now undergoing treatment in hospitals as they suffered serious injuries,” Maurya said. He warned if FIR is not lodged, BJP workers would launch an agitation and move to court. The state unit chief claimed that despite their absence from the protest site, some of the leaders – general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak, organisational general secretary Sunil Bansal and an MLA – were named in the FIR lodged by the police on Wednesday. “Pathak was in Mumbai, Bansal was in Karnataka and the MLA was sitting inside Vidhan Sabha,” he said. Maurya claimed he was even stopped by the police in Vidhan Sabha when he tried to meet Akhilesh. “This is contempt of privileges of an MP,” he said adding that and he would raise the issue in Parliament.