Ready to go alone to Sambhal with police but not allowed: Rahul Gandhi

Ghaziabad: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who was stopped at the Ghazipur border here on Wednesday, said he was ready to go alone to Sambhal with police but was not allowed.

"As the leader of the opposition, it is my constitutional right. I should have been allowed," he said.

The Congress' Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was accompanying Rahul Gandhi, said, "Rahul ji is on a constitutional post and has the constitutional right. He should be allowed to meet the victims' families." With prohibitory orders in place in Sambhal, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi was stopped at the Ghazipur border here on Wednesday on his way to the district.

"I am ready to go alone to Sambhal with police but I am not being allowed," Rahul Gandhi said in Ghaziabad.

Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other senior Congress leaders reached the Ghazipur border in the morning where heavy police force was deployed and barricades put up to stop them from entering Sambhal.

Curbs under Section 163 (power to issue an order in urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which were set to expire on Sunday, have now been extended till December 31 in Sambhal.

Sambhal District Magistrate Rajendra Pensia on Tuesday wrote a letter to the police commissioners of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad and the superintendents of police of Amroha and Bulandshahr districts, urging them to stop Rahul Gandhi at the borders of their districts.

"We will not permit Rahul Gandhi to Sambhal as prohibitory orders have been issued by the administration there. Police will stop Gandhi at UP gate," Ghaziabad Police Commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra told PTI.

He said ample police force has been deployed at the spot, he said.

Tension had been brewing in Sambhal since November 19, when a Mughal-era mosque was surveyed on court orders following claims that a Harihar temple previously stood at the site.

Violence erupted during a second survey on November 24 as protesters gathered near Shahi Jama Masjid and clashed with security personnel. Four people were killed in the violence and many more were injured.