Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra detained by UP Police on their way to meet Hathras rape victim's family

Reports said the detained leaders will not be allowed to meet the family of the woman, whose alleged forced cremation at the dead of the night on Tuesday evoked nationwide outrage.

Rahul Gandhi, who was stopped along with his sister and Congress General Secretary UP (East), on their way to meet Hathras rape victim's family members, claimed that he was pushed to the ground and baton-charged by the cops on the highway between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh as they began a foot march to Boolagarhi village.

The Gandhis sat on the expressway, showing their protest, along with hundreds of their supporters as UP Police stopped their progress to the rape victim's house.

"Just now police pushed me, lathicharged me and pushed me to the ground. I ask, can only Modiji walk in this country? Can't an ordinary person walk? We started walking as our vehicle was stopped," Rahul Gandhi said attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party BJP rules Uttar Pradesh.

Ahead of the Congress leaders' visit, the Uttar Pradesh administration, enforced a ban on large gatherings and put barricades along the borders, citing coronavirus restrictions.

The Congress leaders managed to cross the border and enter Uttar Pradesh but their SUVs were stopped at but their convoy was stopped at Greater Noida, about 142 km from Hathras.

As they were stopped Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi then started walking on foot along with their supporters shouting slogans against UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Meanwhile, Congress, in a series of tweets, hit out at the BJP government of Uttar Pradesh for using force on its leaders and stopping them from meeting the deceased rape victim's kin.

The 20-year-old dalit rape victim died at Delhi's Safdurjung Hospital on Tuesday. She had suffered multiple multiple fractures, paralysis and severe spinal injury in a sexual assault by four upper caste men in Boolagarhi village of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh on September 14.

Amid massive outpour of anger over Uttar Pradesh Police's lackadaisical response and official inertia over the victim's family's pleas, her body was taken away forcibly. Her family had begged to take her body to their home and do her last rites the next morning. Instead, they were hustled into an SUV right from the hospital and locked in their home in the village while the state police cremated their daughter at 2.30 am, in an act that is being widely viewed as a desperate attempt to cover up its string of lapses.