New Delhi: Hours after being arrested, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday alleged that she was being held illegally at the PAC compound in Sitapur and no notice or FIR has been provided to her even after being in detention for over 38 hours.
The Congress leader also said that she was not allowed to meet her legal counsel.
In a statement, she said she has not been produced in front of a magistrate or any other judicial officer and neither has she been allowed to meet her legal counsel, who has been standing at the gate of the compound since morning.
"Presently I am not going into the details of the completely illegal physical force used on my colleagues and me at the time of my arrest as this statement serves merely to clarify the continuing illegality of my confinement at the PAC compound in Sitapur, UP," she said.
"I have not been served with any order or notice. Nor have they shown me an FIR. I have not been produced in front of a magistrate or any other judicial officer either. I have also not been allowed to meet my legal counsel who has been standing at the gate since morning," the Congress leader also said.
Priyanka Gandhi has been kept in detention since Monday morning after she wanted to meet the families of the victims of the Lakhimpur clashes.
Furthermore, Gandhi also alleged that she has seen a portion of a paper on social media in which the authorities have named 11 people, including eight who were not even present at the time she was arrested.
In fact they have even named the two persons "who brought my clothes from Lucknow on the afternoon of October 4", she said.
The Congress leader said she has been placed under arrest as verbally informed to her by the arresting officer DSP Piyush Kumar Singh, CO City, Sitapur, under Section 151 at 4.30 am on October 4.
"At the time I was arrested I was travelling within the district of Sitapur, approximately 20 km from the border of district Lakhimpur Kheri which was under section 144. However to my knowledge section 144 was not imposed in Sitapur," she said.
"I was then driven to the PAC compound, Sitapur accompanied by two female and two male constables. Having been brought to the PAC compound, no further communication regarding the circumstances or the reasons, or the sections under which I have been charged have been communicated to me by the UP Police or administration until now-38 hours later at 6.30 pm on October 5, 2021," she said.
Meanwhile, former Punjab Congress President Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday threatened to march towards Lakhimpur Kheri with other party workers. The activists of Punjab Congress will walk towards Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh if Priyanka Gandhi is not released and the Union Minister's son accused of murder not arrested, Sidhu warned.
A number of Congress workers have come out in support of her and have demanded her immediate release so that she can visit the families of the violence victims and share their grief.
(With inputs from PTI.)