Preventive detention of Rahul & Priyanka Gandhi on way to Hathras, alleges lathicharge by police

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway, 40 km from the national capital on Thursday afternoon as they were walking towards Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to visit the family members of the Dalit woman who was brutally raped and had died earlier this week.

Initially the Congress leaders were going in vehicles to Hathras, but they were stopped as soon as they entered Uttar Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi told the media that they had then decided to walk to the home of the young woman. He said that while the police had said he could not walk ahead as Section 144 was imposed there, he was not breaking the law as he intended to walk ahead alone and not in a group.

However, a few minutes later, there was chaos and the group was tried to stop from walking ahead. Rahul Gandhi alleged that he was pushed to the ground and lathicharged. He and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra then sat on the expressway. Hundreds of supporters sat along with them on the expressway. They were forced to not walk ahead and stopped through preventive detention.

“I want to ask, can only Modi Ji walk in this country? Can’t a normal person walk? Our vehicle had been stopped, so we started walking,” Rahul Gandhi said.

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has been criticised for the brutal handling of case of rape and murder of the 20-year-old woman. The gang-raped woman who died on Tuesday was cremated in the dead of night by the police without the family’s presence.

The woman died at a hospital on Tuesday. She had suffered multiple fractures and spinal injury following an assault on her by four upper caste men from her village on September 14. 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 family had pleaded with the police to take the body home and allow the cremation the next morning.