4-member TMC team to visit Lucknow today

Kolkata: A four-member delegation of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) is slated to visit Lucknow on Sunday to meet the grieving families of protesters killed in police firing on December 20. Several people have died in police firing in various parts of Uttar Pradesh on December 20, during the protests against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi is expected to lead the delegation and will be accompanied by MPs Pratima Mondal, Mohammad Nadimul Haque and Abir Biswas.

"Our delegation is going to Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow) on a humanitarian mission to be with the grieving families of those killed and also meet those injured in the incidents," read a statement issued by the Trinamool Congress.

State Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, O P Singh has however, denied that the protesters were killed in police firing. He has claimed that not a single bullet was fired by the police. Over 50 police personnel were injured in the clashes, according to the police.

Section 144 has been imposed in various parts of Uttar Pradesh in lieu of the prevailing law and order situation.

Earlier, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the Centre's push regarding the CAA and NRC.

"I request the Prime Minister. You aren't only the BJP's Prime Minister. You are the Prime Minister of the whole nation. Withdraw the CAA and the NRC…. Listen to the voice of the people," Banerjee said after a meeting with senior leaders of her party on Friday following which she declared a slew of programmes to protest against the CAA and NRC.

Banerjee had maintained that with the entire country raging against the CAA and NRC, the Prime Minister must take steps to restore normalcy.

She has demanded an "opinion poll" overseen by experts like the Human Rights Commission. "I have full faith in my country and its people. I want an opinion poll on CAA and NRC," she had said on Friday.