More than 35 Samajwadi Party workers and leaders were injured in a police lathicharge in Varanasi on Thursday.

The workers were holding a protest on the last day of 72-hour “Ghera Dalo Dera Dalo” stir of the party against the Bahujan Samaj Party government. The SP activists had blocked the main gate to Varanasi Collectorate premises.

Party spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary said the BSP government had unleashed a reign of terror against the workers who were staging a peaceful protest. Flaying the state government and local administration for the episode, SP spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary the BSP government had unleashed a reign of terror against the workers who were staging a peaceful protest. The lathicharge was pre-planned to crush an agitation which was getting huge public support.

The police, he said, were particularly brutal in Varanasi and Jhansi. And in Lakhimpur, Sultanpur, Farrukhabad and Kanpur, over a hundred workers were injured. Those injured in the lathicharge in Varanasi include the former chairman of UP Gau Sewa Commission, Dr K P Yadav, district party president Akhilesh Mishra, party president of the city Paras Nath Jaiswal, youth leader Manish Rai and women leaders Sapna

Agrahari, Janki Yadav and Sheila Chaturvedi.

Some of the injured have been admitted at the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital. A worker, Mahesh Yadav, who suffered multiple injuries, has been referred to the Benaras Hindu University Hospital.

Chowdhary said as many as 181 party leaders and activists have been arrested. They include MLA from Gangapur Surendra Patel, former state minister Virendra Singh and the injured leaders.

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