On Friday, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has been denied permission to visit violence struck area of Saharanpur in western Uttar Pradesh.
“No permission has been given for Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the district,” said ADG (law and order) Aditya Mishra, adding that the district administration has banned the visits of all political leaders.
On Thursday, Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP PL Punia was denied permission to visit the affected areas.
Gandhi had plans to visit Shabbirpur village in the district on Saturday and meet Dalit families whose houses had been burnt, besides a hospital where some injured are undergoing treatment.
Notably, a state of unrest continues to hit the normalcy of Saharanpur. Saharanpur has been witnessing caste-based violence since late April. The situation got worse after a Dalit man was killed and several injured in violence on Tuesday. As a repercussion to the violence, mobile Internet and other messaging services had been suspended in the district on Wednesday night. In order to trace the Bhim Army Chief Chandrasekhar, the police have also put 25 phones under surveillance.
While the UP government faces a tough time bringing back normalcy in the area, the state on Wednesday transferred Saharanpur’s District Magistrate and Senior Superintendent of Police for failing to control the spread of violence in the region.
According to reports, the clashes between the Thakurs and the Dalits in the region had first been reported in Shabbirpur village in the month of April when the former had allegedly stopped the Dalits from installing a statue of B R Ambedkar inside the Ravidas temple.
