Samajwadi Party and Nishad Party workers Friday held separate protests against lathi-charge on Gorakhpur MP, Praveen Nishad, and others on Thursday while they were staging a demonstration for granting reservation to the Nishad community under the Scheduled Caste category.
SP workers held a protest at the Laxmibai park and handed over memorandum to city magistrate demanding action against police for resorting to cane charge and also a high level probe into it.
While taking to reporters at the SP protest, Praveen Nishad said, "We are Samajwadi people, we are Nishad Party people and we are BSP people... we are not Yogi, we won't shed tears in Parliament ... will give befitting reply."
Nishad had last year won the bypoll to the Gorakhpur parliamentary constituency on a Samajwadi Party ticket with the support of the Bahujan Samaj Party. The bye-election was necessitated after Adityanath vacated the seat when he became the chief minister.
He said they were going towards the 'mini office' of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the Gorakhnath temple to hand over a memorandum, but the police resorted to cane charged and stopped them.
"This is CM's city and when a Member of Parliament is not safe here how could the citizens be," he said.
The district president of Samajwadi Party Prahlad Yadav and city president Ziaul Islam along with other party men also condemned the police action.
Nishad Party also demonstrated inside the district hospital, alleging that those who sustained injuries in Thursday's police action were not provided proper medical facilities
The Uttar Pradesh parliamentarian from Gorakhpur and 20 others were detained on Thursday while staging a demonstration for granting reservation to the Nishad community under the SC category, police said.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sunil Gupta had said the protesters had permission for the programme in Bhagwanpur only.
The SSP said when the protesters started marching towards the temple, the police tried to stop them but they did not listen. To disburse the crowd, water cannon was used first and when it didnt work out, "light force" was used, the officer had added.
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