Lakhimpur Kheri violence: Illegally held in Sitapur, no FIR shown after 38-hr detention, says Priyanka Gandhi after arrest

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Tuesday alleged that she was being held illegally at the PAC compound in Sitapur and no notice or FIR has been provided to her even after her 38-hour “unexplained” detention.

She was also prevented from meeting her legal counsel, who has been standing at the gate of the compound since morning. In a statement, she said she has not been produced in front of a magistrate or any other judicial officer.

“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.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra says after she was taken to Sitapur PAC compound following detention on way to Lakhimpur Kheri, "no further communication regarding circumstances or reason, or sections under which I've been charged have been communicated to me" pic.twitter.com/rVgWHoM8gw

— ANI (@ANI) October 5, 2021

“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.

Earlier in the day, Vadra was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police along with 10 other leaders, for ‘disrupting peace’ and breaching Section 144.

Vadra has been kept in detention since Monday morning while she was on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri, where four farmers were allegedly run over by a convoy of BJP leaders. In the bloodiest clash since the farmers’ protest over the Centre’s agri laws began last year, eight people died and several others were injured on Sunday.

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 4 October”, she said.

“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 5 October, 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.

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.

Several provisions of the law have been violated. Law & Order seems to have a different meaning in Uttar Pradesh. Law means, Adityanath's law & order means Adityanath's order. It's a gross violation of her constitutional rights: Congress leader P. Chidambaram

— ANI (@ANI) October 5, 2021

Earlier, Congress had alleged that the BJP government was spying on Priyanka and preventing her from meeting her lawyers.

“She is not being allowed to meet her lawyers and the administration is not telling her reasons for her detention,” Congress media and communication vice-chairperson Pankaj Srivastava said.

Besides Priyanka Gandhi, state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu, national secretary Dheeraj Gurjar, Youth Congress national president BV Srinivas, party MLC Deepak Singh are also under arrest.

On Tuesday, she shared a video on Twitter purportedly showing a group of protesting farmers being mowed down by an SUV.

“@narendramodi ji your government has detained me for the past 28 hours without any order or FIR. Why the person who ran over farmers has not been arrested yet?” she said in a tweet in Hindi.

Her party colleague Gurjar shared another video on the microblogging site showing a drone, which he claimed was flying above the guesthouse where Congress leaders have been detained.

The government is so scared of Priyanka Gandhi that even after keeping her under detention, it is using a drone to keep an eye on her, he tweeted in Hindi.

With inputs from PTI