Lucknow: A day after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi claimed that the Uttar Pradesh government had killed people in Greater Noida`s Bhatta Parsaul village to quell the farmers` stir, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday demanded that authorities provide an explanation for the "missing" villagers.
"To our knowledge, several locals are still missing from the village... the state government must respond on this immediately by providing an account of all the missing villagers," BJP national vice president Kalraj Mishra told reporters at a press conference here.
"We fear that hundreds of locals have been killed... The matter is shocking and serious... The entire picture of police atrocities would emerge if the state government releases the list of missing people," he added.
Less than a week after he skillfully dodged the Uttar Pradesh administration to visit Bhatta-Parsaul, Rahul Gandhi on Monday took eight farmers from the area to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and alleged that women had been raped and people had found 74 heaps of ashes with dead bodies inside after the May 7 violence when villagers clashed with police.
According to Mishra, the Congress scion`s actions were just "vote bank politics".
"For him (Rahul Gandhi), the entire issue is related to politics... Farmers and issues governing them hold no importance for him... he claims to be the custodian of farmers` rights just for vote bank politics," alleged Mishra.
IANS
