Delegation led by UP LoP 'stopped' from leaving for violence-hit Bareilly

A delegation of 14 Samajwadi Party MPs and MLAs who were scheduled to visit violence-hit Bareilly on Saturday were allegedly stopped at their homes by police, Leader of the Opposition in UP Assembly Mata Prasad Pandey said.

Pandey, who was to lead the delegation, alleged that police are deployed outside the homes of all SP party workers, he said.

The LoP said they have received two letters, one from the police and another from the Bareilly district magistrate, saying that the SP delegation will ''worsen the atmosphere'' in the city.

Pandey added that the Yogi Adityanath government was ''stopping them to hide its failures''.

Bareilly witnessed violence following the Friday namaz last week.

UP minister JPS Rathore said opposition MPs and leaders who are talking about wanting to visit Bareilly are just trying to ''vitiate the atmosphere''. The government will not allow anyone to disturb the peace and tranquillity of Bareilly, he said, adding that there is now complete peace in the city.

Speaking to PTI Videos at his residence, the LoP Pandey said, ''The circle officer and a senior Local Intelligence Unit officer are here. They are telling me not to go there (Bareilly).'' ''What will happen if we go? This was done in the case of Sambhal and Bahraich. When our delegation goes there, we will establish peace there, because this isn't a communal riot, not a Hindu-Muslim conflict, that our visit will escalate it further,'' Pandey said.

Referring to protests in the city last week, Pandey claimed that the Muslim community only wanted to give a letter to the authorities, but police resorted to excessive force against them.

''The chief minister should personally go there to see what went wrong and correct the mistakes that have occurred,'' he said.

Chief spokesperson of Samajwadi Party, Rajendra Chaudhary, said police confined all members of the delegation to their homes.

The delegation included LoP Mata Prasad Pandey; Lok Sabha MPs Harendra Malik, Iqra Hasan, Ziaur Rahman Barq, Mohibullah Nadvi and Neeraj Maurya; former MPs Virpal Singh Yadav, Praveen Singh Aron and Shivcharan Kashyap; MLAs Ataur Rahman and Shahzil Islam Ansari; former minister Bhagwat Sharan Gangwar, SP leaders Shamim Khan Sultani and Shubhalesh Yadav.

This is condemnable and shameful, Chaudhary was quoted as saying in a statement.

MP Ziaur Rehman told reporters that a police force was deployed at his residence at Deepa Sarai area in Sambhal.

''We wanted to go to Bareilly, but we were not allowed to go. We wanted to meet the families of the victims. The entire world is witnessing the oppression and atrocities being committed against them. This is setting a precedent, tarnishing the image of the country,'' he said.

The Sambhal MP said people are being targeted and the injustice they are facing ''is unimaginable''.

''Our ancestors could never have imagined that we would see such a day in a free country,'' he said.

Rehman said protesters in Bareilly were only going to submit a memorandum on September 26, but 10 cases were filed against them.

He said the police have also accused them of pelting stones and opening gunfire. ''If the police administration has such photos and videos, why haven't they shown them to the nation yet? What's their fault? Why doesn't the police administration provide proof of this to the media?'' he said.

UP minister JPS Rathore, however, launched a scathing attack on the SP, saying the opposition party's leaders now want to go to Bareilly ''to shed tears for the same rioters, who attempted to kill police and innocent people''.

''For whom are they going to Bareilly? Those who broke the law, threw stones, and attacked the police?'' he said, asserting that no innocent people were harmed in police action and that only those who broke the law were sent to jail.

''Markets are open, traffic is normal, and the police are vigilantly monitoring. The administration says that the situation will return to complete calm in the coming days,'' the minister said in a statement.

Rathore, who is the minister of state (independent charge) for Cooperation, said opposition parties thought that if Bareilly was engulfed in flames, they would gain some political advantage but the administration's strict action thwarted their plans.

Those who once invoked the Constitution are now trying to break the law and spread violence, the minister added.

Reacting to the SP delegation's visit to Bareilly, UP BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi told PTI, ''The Samajwadi Party wants to stir up the sensitive atmosphere in Bareilly.'' ''The government and administration, with patience and restraint, thwarted the conspiracy to incite unrest in the state. The Yogi Adityanath government will not allow any conspiracy to foment communal riots to succeed,'' he said.

On September 26, protesters who were opposing FIRs over ''I Love Muhammad'' posters clashed with police in the heart of Bareilly following Friday prayers after they were not permitted to hold a demonstration. Several people were injured in the violence.

Police have lodged 10 FIRs and booked hundreds of people, mostly unidentified, in connection with the violence. More than 70 people, including cleric Tauqeer Raza Khan, his aides and some relatives, have been arrested.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)