Kanpur: Taking SP workers in preventive custody, the police today came down heavily against the 'BSP hatao, Pradesh Bachao' campaign of Samajwadi Party against the Mayawati government.
Since morning, the police had cordoned off the Shikshak park area where SP workers are staging a three-day long protest starting from Monday.
Clamping down on protesters since last night, police had taken about 150 SP workers in preventive custody by afternoon under various sections of IPC and lodged them in a temporary jail at Rawatpur, SP Kushhar Saurabh said. The police will deal with the SP protesters stringently if they turn violent, Saurabh added.
Claiming to have burnt several Mayawati effigies, Jitendra Bahadur Singh, SP Chief of Kanpur, said that police took several SP workers in custody despite a peaceful protest being carried by them.
SP workers are protesting in separate groups so as to avoid a mass arrest by the police, he added.