Priyanka vows to come back as UP officials set her free, sit-in called off

Mirzapur/Lucknow: The standoff between Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi and the Uttar Pradesh government ended Saturday, a day after she was detained by the Mirzapur administration when she insisted on travelling to the scene of a recent shootout in Sonbhadra.

Gandhi spent Friday night at the Chunar guesthouse, insisting she will not return to Delhi unless she meets the families of the victims.

On Saturday, some of the villagers from Sonbhadra, where 10 people were gunned down over a land dispute, came to the guesthouse itself.

Later, a Congress leader said she was returning to Varanasi, where she had landed on Friday.

The Congress general secretary had earlier met some of those injured in Wednesday's clash at the BHU Trauma Centre in Varanasi.

But she was stopped while she and her supporters were travelling to Sonbhadra by road.

"I am now leaving because my purpose of meeting the families of the victims has been fulfilled. But I will return very soon. I had come here on the instructions of my brother Rahul Gandhi," she said before ending her 24-hour dharna.

Mirzapur District Magistrate (DM) Anurag Patel took a u-turn on Saturday and said that the Congress leader was free to go since she had neither been detained, nor arrested. The DM on Friday night had asked her to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 so that she could be allowed to go.

Several senior Congress leaders who were on their way to Sonbhadra were detained by the police at Varanasi airport. A three-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress was also detained at the airport.

The detention of the political leaders came a day after Priyanka was detained and stopped in Mirzapaur district from going to Sonbhadra to meet the injured and the victims' families.

The Congress termed the entire episode as a 'major victory for the party' and slammed the Yogi Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh for resorting to fascism and preventing their leaders from visiting Sonbhadra.