Samajwadi Party student leader kidnaps girl at gunpoint

Prasanjeet Gautam, along with his 16 armed supporters barged into  the house of Surendra Sharma in Vaishali colony and abducted his daughter, a law student. Before leaving, Gautam and his supporters also opened fire, in which the girl’s brother was injured.
Locals, however, managed to catch one of Gautam's supporters, who was later handed over to the police.

"Seven teams have been constituted to trace the kidnapped girl and nab Prasanjeet Gautam and his other aides," Superintendent of Police Prabal Pratap Singh told reporters in Meerut, some 450 km from Lucknow.

"Preliminary investigations indicate the incident is linked to Gautam's love affair with the girl," he added.

While posters put up recently in different corners of the city here projected Gautam as a leader of the Samajwadi Party’s youth wing, some of the party officials claimed he was no longer associated with party.

“To the best of my knowledge, we have taken disciplinary action against Gautam. He is not with our party now," claimed the party’s district unit president Jaiveer Kumar.

SP state president Akhilesh Yadav told reporters in Lucknow that he would comment on the issue only after enquiring about the case from his partymen in Meerut.