Priyanka Gandhi stopped and detained at Mirzapur

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi was on Friday detained after police stopped her while going to Sonbhadra district in Uttar Pradesh to meet survivors of caste violence, party supporters said.

As police led her away, a defiant Gandhi told reporters that she won’t be cowed down by the police action and vowed to go Sonbhadra. “The cops stopped me,” she said from inside a car.

But a senior police officer said that Gandhi had not been detained.

The Congress leader’s alleged detention came after she met some of the injured from the Gond community at the Banaras Hindu University Trauma Centre in Varanasi.

At least 10 people, including three women, died and over 24 were injured in a clash between Gond and Gujjar communities over a land dispute in Sonbhadra district on Wednesday.

After meeting the injured in Varanasi, Gandhi proceeded for Ubhbha village in Mirzapur. There, she was stopped by the police.

Annoyed over the lack of permission to visit Sonbhadra, Gandhi and her supporters squatted on a road in Narayanpur area in Mirzapur.

Gandhi told the media: “I just want to meet the families of the victims. I even said I will take only four people with me. Yet the district administration is not letting us go there.

“They should tell us why we are being stopped. We will continue to sit here peacefully,” she said.

Police have arrested 24 people in connection with the violence. A case has been registered against 78 people.