CHANDIGARH: Some hours after the Punjab Congress group led by state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu was detained on the way to Lakhimpur Kheri, the Uttar Pradesh police released them and allowed them to go there. The police had on Thursday afternoon detained Sidhu along with some cabinet ministers and Congress MLAs at the Haryana-UP border. They were taken to Sarsawa police station in Saharanpur district in a bus after they tried to remove barricades to march to Lakhimpur Kheri to meet families of farmers killed in violence on Sunday.
Ghanaur MLA Madan Lal Jalalpur told TOI over phone, “We are around 50 persons who have started from Sarsawa police station in our private vehicles at around 9 pm...”
Can’t we even share grief: Sidhu
When the group was stopped at the border, Sidhu had warned that he would sit on hunger strike if the UP police failed to arrest Union minister of state Ajay Kumar Mishra’s son Ashish by Friday in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case.
Besides Sidhu, others detained were cabinet ministers Pargat Singh, Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and Vijay Inder Singla, former cabinet minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and Congress MLAs Kuljit Singh Nagra, Madan Lal Jalalpur, Satkar Kaur, Dr Raj Kumar Chhabewal among others. An ADGP rank officer accompanied them from Saharanpur border to Sarsawa police station.
Saharanpur district magistrate Akhilesh Singh told Sidhu that only five persons could be permitted to visit Lakhimpur Kheri, but Punjab Congress leaders were adamant that everyone should be allowed to make a peaceful visit to victims’ houses.
Sidhu also got embroiled in arguments with the Sharanpur police and administration officers at the Saharanpur border when the police tried to stop the Punjab Congress leaders from entering UP. He also threatened to go on hunger strike at the site if the group was not allowed to visit Lakhimpur Kheri.
Sidhu said, "There is no democracy in this country. You hang the swan and acquit the vultures. Murderers are roaming openly. Can’t we even share the grief of the victims' families? Is the law only for the poor? Is the law not for the Union minister and his son?...Loktantra has been made into Dandatantra and Goondatantra." Punjab PWD minister Vijay Inder Singla said, "They put barricades at the Saharanpur border. We were put in buses from there by telling us that they would take us to Lakhimpur Kheri. But they have brought us to the police station."
Earlier, nearly 4,000 Congress leaders and workers gathered at the Mohali international airport intersection on Patiala road near Zirakpur, bearing flags associated with farmers’ agitation, and raised slogans of Kisan Mazdoor Ekta Zindabad.
Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who had on Wednesday visited Lakhimpur Kheri along with former AICC president Rahul Gandhi, came there briefly just before the Congress convoy moved towards Saharanpur at 1 pm. With most of the vehicles turning back from Zirakpur, ultimately hardly 1,000 Congress leaders and workers finally moved towards Saharanpur.
Many cabinet ministers, including Razia Sultana who had resigned as minister on September 28 in support of Sidhu, and MLAs did not turn up during the event. Since has also not attended the office in Punjab civil secretariat since then.
