1 SP activist killed in UP in confrontation with police

Lucknow, Jan 9 (UNI)At least one Samajwadi Party activist was killed and several others injured in different parts of Uttar Pradesh today in the ongoing demonstrations to protest the alleged manhandling of their SP state working president Shiv Pal Singh Yadav and others.

Trouble erupted last night with the alleged manhandling of SP general secretary Shiv Pal Singh Yadav by the state capital police leading to the infuriated SP cadre launching a state-wide violent agitation in which a youth was killed in SP's bastion Etawah. Mr Shiv Pal Singh Yadav is the younger brother of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.The SP leaders were demanding the restoration of students union and other students related issues.

They were subsequently arrested.

Unfazed by the incidents which covered at least a dozen districts including Etawah, the home district of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chief Minister Mayawati said the police action was totally justified and dubbed SP ''a party of goons''.

SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav, on the other hand, alleged the BSP government was being vindictive and working on the agenda of political vendetta.

Meanwhile, while the government claimed that one person had died in the firing at Safai, SP leader and MP Akhilesh Yadav claimed that two students of the local Choudhury Charan Singh college, Safai, have also been killed in police firing.

Ms Mayawati warned Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav to be ready for dire consequences if his party workers, who she termed ''criminals and goons''continued the violence in the state.

''My government will not discriminate with any leader as far as maintenance of law and order is concerned,'' she told reporters here this evening in the wake of large scale violence by the SP activists in various districts of the state.

SP workers were on the rampage since last night when the party leader Shiv Pal Singh was allegedly manhandled by the police in the state capital during a protest against police action against some students. Mr Shiv Pal Singh Yadav and party MP Akhilesh Singh Yadav were arrested last night only to be released later.

As the news reached the other parts of the state, SP workers indulged in violence at several places.

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