Lucknow:
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, placed under preventive arrest by the Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday for leading protests against spiralling prices of food items in Lucknow, has now been released.
Samajwadi Party workers earlier resorted to arson and stone throwing at Lucknow's Hazratganj crossing. Police had to lathicharge protesters when they tried to break through a barricade. The party workers also clashed with police when the latter tried to stop them from marching to the District Magistrate's office.
Mulayam reacted to the lathicharge saying, "It's not fair to lathicharge people like this. We have not done anything wrong. We have been protesting peacefully. We want an explanation as to why were our workers were lathicharged."
Since morning, there had been heavy police depolyment across Lucknow to prevent large groups of people from assembling at one point.
The Mayawati government had not given permission for the protest.