By IANS
Lucknow : Om Prakash Yadav, whose petition stopped Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati from going ahead with demolition of a popular sports complex here, was Sunday held by police on the charge of leading a violent protest demonstration.
The Lucknow police maintained that Yadav had been picked up for his alleged involvement in last month’s torching of a state-owned bus during the mob protest against gross bungling in the state’s Combined Pre-Medical Test (CPMT) results.
Yadav had this month approached Justice Pradeep Kant, senior judge of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, to restrain the state government from demolishing the sports complex to make way for expansion of Mayawati’s dream project – the 108-acre Ambedkar Park-cum-Memorial.
Holding a hearing in the wee hours, the court restrained the government from going ahead.
But Yadav had to spend almost 12 hours in the police lock-up Sunday. “He was identified among those who led the violent demonstration, so we had brought him for questioning,” said a senior police official.
“This has nothing to do with his being petitioner in the sports complex demolition case,” he added.
Yadav, who looked terrorised after spending nearly half the night and a good part of the day in the lock-up, told IANS: “They questioned me about the mob attack on a bus with which I have nothing to do.”
Asked if he was intimidated in any manner, he said: “Well, without spelling it out, they made it very obvious that their intention was to exert psychological pressure on me to withdraw the petition.”