MP Derek O’Brien pushed to the ground, women MPs manhandled on way to Hathras, Trinamool Congress alleges

A delegation of Trinamool Congress MPs on their way to Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras was stopped by the police on Friday. Following a chaos at the spot where the delegation was stopped, MP Derek O’Brien was pushed to the ground and three women MPs in the delegation were manhandled, the party has alleged.

A 20-year-old woman was brutally gangraped in the village on September 14 and she died on Tuesday. The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has been criticised for the brutal handling of the case. The gang-raped woman who died on Tuesday was cremated in the dead of night by the police without the family’s presence. The UP Police took away her body from the hospital to the village and cremated the body forcibly and locked the family in their home. The brutal killing and the inhuman, forcible cremation has led to nation-wide anger.

On Friday, O’Brien was pushed to the ground as the leaders tried to enter the village Hathras, where a young woman lived. In a 32-second video, a man in plainclothes wearing helmet can be seen grabbing MP Pratima Mandal by the shoulders. Derek O’Brien, on seeing this, rushes to rescue her and is then pushed to the ground by the same man. In other videos, Trinamool Congress MPs Pratima Mandal, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, and former MP Mamata Bala Thakur can be seen urging policemen to allow them to go to Hathras and meet the family of the young woman. O’Brien is seen telling the cops that he can volunteer to stay back, but the women MPs should be allowed to go in.

The party, in a statement said that the MPs were stopped by UP Police 200 km from Delhi and were prevented from entering Hathras. The statement said that they were travelling to express solidarity with the grieving family and to express condolences. They were barely 2 km away from the young woman’s home, according to the Trinamool Congress.

On Thursday, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway by the police, and were detained as they were planning to go to Hathras. A case was filed against both. Rahul Gandhi was pushed to the ground.