Ready to face arrest, Priyanka tweets

Lucknow: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday night insisted on meeting the families of the victims of Sonbhadra firing incident, stressing that she was ready to go to jail for it.

In a series of tweets in Hindi, Gandhi, who was detained in Mirzapur on her way to Sonbhadra this morning, said, “If the government wants to put me in jail for the crime of meeting the victims, I am fully prepared for it.

“I have come here to meet the poor adivasis who had faced the massacre and know about their problems. This is my ‘dharma’ as the ‘sevak’ of the people and also my moral right. My decision to meet them is firm,” she said.

“Uttar Pradesh administration has arrested and kept me in the Chunar Fort for the past 9 hours and is saying that I will have to take bail of Rs. 50,000 or else I will be punished and put in jail for 14 days but they will not allow me to go to Sonbhadra as this is an order from the higher ups,” she said.

“I have not broken any law or committed crime. I had made it clear in the morning that I can go alone to meet the families in the adivasi village and the administration can take me there as it wants,” she said.

Gandhi said the people “are seeing everything” and refused to take bail.

“I do not consider bail in this connection as morally right and am not ready for it. My clear demand is that I be allowed to meet the adivasis. Government can do whatever it feels is right,” she added.

Ten people from the Gond tribe were gunned down in Sonbhadra on Wednesday after they resisted an attempt by a village head and his supporters to take possession of 90 bighas of disputed land in the district’s Ghorawal area.