JD(U) MP detained, prevented from visiting riot-hit areas

JD(U) MP Ali Anwar Ansari was today prevented from visiting the riot-hit areas here and detained at the railway station by the UP police.

Circle Officer, Sanjeev Bajpai said Ansari was detained as a preventive measure in view of the situation in the region.

Ansari said, "The state government has no problem when Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi visited the area but it is resorting to such action against us when our effort is to bring peace in the trouble-torn areas."

The JD(U) leader, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, said he wanted to visit the family members of the journalist killed in the clashes and also meet a group of people associated with social activist Medha Patkar, who was sitting on a dharna. He was detained at the GRP station.

"The government is not allowing us to go there. I am not somebody who will provoke communal feelings...There is no curfew in the area, so under what rule we have been prevented from going there," Ansari, who has been leading an organisation of backward Muslims, All India Pasmanda Samaj, said.

In-charge of UP Pasmanda Samaj Israr Ahmed Saifi and some other members of the organisation were also detained.