Gautam Budh Nagar, India: A row has broken out in India over claims that police killed scores of farmers last week protesting against their land being used for a new road. Local women in Uttar Pradesh state had also been raped, senior Congress party MP Rahul Gandhi told reporters after a meeting with the prime minister.
The state’s governing Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) has denied the charges, saying they are politically motivated.
Farmers say they were forced to give up land for a major new expressway.
Gandhi led a delegation of villagers from the state of Uttar Pradesh to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday night.
Afterwards, Gandhi alleged that “quite severe atrocities” were taking place in the villages of Bhatta and Parsaul in Gautam Budh Nagar district, not far from the Indian capital, Delhi.
“There is a set of 74 large heaps of ash there with dead bodies inside. Everybody in the village knows it. Women have been raped, people have been thrashed. Houses have been destroyed.”
Two policemen and a farmer are known to have been killed during the protests.
Media reports say many see this is as a political row between the two parties ahead of local elections due next year.
But acquisition of land for industry is a raging issue in India as it tries to balance the demands of its growing economy with the interests of its rural poor.
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