Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will visit Sonbhadra tomorrow where 10 people were killed in a shootout this week over a land dispute. The Chief Minister’s visit comes amid a spiralling political row over the deaths, blamed on a village chief trying to forcefully take control of land from farmers.
Yogi Adityanath will visit the Ubbah village in Sonbhadra district to meet the families of people who were killed. In the afternoon, he will address a press conference at the district collectorate, an official said.
10 people were killed and over 24 injured on Wednesday when a village chief, Yagya Dutt, and his associates, fired on a group of tribal farmers who had refused to give up 36 acres of land they had tilled for generations. Witnesses said Yagya Dutt had brought nearly 200 men on 32 tractor trolleys to seize the land. The men fired at the tribals for over half-an-hour in one of the most chilling incidents the country has seen in recent times.
The incident triggered sharp attacks on the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh with opposition parties accusing it of trying to protect the accused. Congress, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, the Left and the Trinamool Congress hit out at the government on Saturday.
While the standoff between Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and the Uttar Pradesh government ended Saturday, a day after she was detained when she insisted on going to Sonbhadra, a new confrontation was triggered when a Trinamool Congress delegation was stopped at the Varanasi airport to prevent them from meeting the victims’ relatives.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met the villagers at a guest house in Mirzapur district on Saturday, saying that “I’ll be back”.
Till now, 24 people have been arrested for the mass murder. A total of 78 people have been charged, including Yagya Dutt and his brother.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday had attacked at the Congress. “The Congress governments in the past have provided protection to land mafias and the Sonbhadra incident is an example of that,” he said.
