Priyanka meets Sonbhadra carnage victims' kin

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday met the kin of the Sonebhadra carnage victims at Umbha village and accused the BJP government in the state of ''harassing'' the innocent villagers while the perpetrators roamed freely.

Ten members of a tribal community, including women, were killed and around two dozen others injured, some seriously, in a violent clash over land in Sonebhadra district, about 500 kilometres from here, last month.

Priyanka, who had to walk on a narrow 'pagdandi' (footpath) between the water filled paddy fields to reach the village, sat with a group of women on the mat and listened to them.

She also visited the spot, where the violent clashes had taken place between the tribals and the village panchayat chief, who had attacked them after they refused to hand over possession of the land to him.

According to the sources, the kin of the victims demanded adequate compensation, jobs for their children and capital punishment to the perpetrators.

''The police have arrested some innocent people while the guilty are roaming freely....this harassment must stop,'' Priyanka later told reporters.

She asked the local Congress leaders to take up the matter with the district officials and ensure justice to the victims' kin.

Priyanka was accorded a warm welcome by Congress workers at Varanasi and Narayanpur on way to Umbha village.

The Congress leader had earlier also tried to go to Umbha village soon after the carnage but was arrested. She had embarked on a dharna forcing the authorities to allow her to meet some families of the victims.

More than two dozen people, including the 'pradhan', were arrested in this regard.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had blamed the Congress for the clashes saying that the dispute had started in 1955, when a few Congress leaders had formed societies and grabbed large tracts of land that belonged to the tribals.