"Govt hiding misdeeds of Police": SP MP Zia Ur Rehman Barq

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party (SP) Lok Sabha MP Zia Ur Rehman Barq on Saturday was stopped by the police while travelling to Sambhal after which he accused the Uttar Pradesh government of hiding the "misdeeds" of the police. The SP MP was planning to visit the violence-affected district from New Delhi when he was stopped at the border between Delhi and Ghaziabad district.
"I condemn the way police stopped us today. If there is injustice against people and killings would happen...who will raise their voices for them? If the police, administration are standing against the people then it is the responsibility of the opposition to help them. Our aim was to empathise with their (the victims) pain. We want to give the report of the incident (Sambhal) to SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav. However, the government is doing all this to hide the misdeeds of the police," the SP MP told ANI.
Barq said that the SP delegation wanted to report on the situation and those who had disrupted the situation but the police didn't have any answer why they stopped us.
"It is in front of you. They don't have any answer as to why they are stopping us. We want to report correctly (about) those who have disrupted the situation. We want to report on those from the police administration responsible for it (the incident)," SP MP Barq said.
Responding to the allegations that the opposition's visit to Sambhal will disrupt the situation, Barq informed that the situation did not go out of control when the public representatives were present during the survey on November 19 and 22.
"We were present on November 19 when the first survey was undertaken. I along with other public representatives were present there. Why did the situation not go out of control then? We were also present on November 22. The situation got worse when we were not there. The public representatives are a link between the police administration and the public. Only they can rectify the (tense) situation. When they are doing lathicharge on people and shooting them, at that time we (the public representatives) would have handled the situation. If we don't get justice from the police and state administration, we will approach the Supreme Court," the SP MP said.
"It is unfortunate. We didn't expect that we would be stopped like this because our delegation was visiting (Sambhal) three days ago and the DGP (Deputy General of Police) told us that we are prohibiting (visits) for three days since they suspected the situation might get worse, but you can go after that. We don't think the situation would have gone worse, but we still agreed and waited for three days. Our delegation was visiting (Sambhal) on the direction of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav," SP MP Zia Ur Rehman Barq told ANI.
Meanwhile, senior SP leader Harendra Malik was stopped by the police while visiting Sambhal. Malik on Saturday expressed his distrust with the government and administration report on the ongoing Sambhal violence. He said that the government must use different mediums to show the reality since district administration itself has been made a party in the matter.
Earlier in the day, amid heavy police deployment outside his residence, SP leader Mata Prasad Pandey was also stopped by the police from visiting Sambhal and a written notice was served to him after he demanded the same.