Bhatta-Parsaul row: Sachin Pilot released

Congress leader and Union minister Sachin Pilot was on Sunday arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police while he was on his way to violence-hit Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida district to meet families of farmers injured in the recent agitation on land acquisition.

He was released from preventive custody later.

The Union minister of state for information technology, along with around 100 supporters, first went to Dasna jail to meet farmers from Bhatta and Parsaul villages lodged there since the agitation for greater compensation for acquired land.

34-year-old Pilot, after leaving Dasna jail, was proceeding towards Bhatta and Parsaul villages to meet families of farmers injured in the violence when he was arrested by the police on National Highway 24.

Pilot said he had not broken any law and demanded a judicial probe into the Bhatta-Parsaul incident in which four persons, including two policemen, were killed on May 7.

"We want a judicial probe into the entire incident (at Bhatta-Parsaul). I was going to Bhatta-Parsaul to meet and console the families of the villagers. I was not breaking any law and my arrest is unjustified," he said.

Pilot and his supporters were taken to the police lines by the UP Police. Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was arrested on the night of May 11 by the UP police after he had slipped unnoticed in pre-dawn hours to the affected area in support of the farmers agitating against the state's land acquisition process for a expressway project.

Gandhi, who had spent nearly 19 hours at Bhatta-Parsaul, the epicentre of the farmers' agitation, was arrested under Sec 151 CrPC and released later.

Taking the land acquisition issue in UP to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's door, Gandhi had on May 16 complained to him about about alleged "rape" of women and "murder" of farmers there, a charge denied by the Mayawati government.

Image: Sachin Pilot