Missing Youth Cong leader found injured in Lucknow

However,a medical check up showed his injuries were minor. The police are questioning Nishant to find out how he reached Lucknow from Hardoi,at a distance of 100 km,and what happened to him during the time he went missing.

It was a shopkeeper,Ram Prakash Gupta,who came to Nishant’s help.

“He had been sitting there for a long time. When I approached him,he asked me the way to Sandila. I told him that he was in Lucknow and Sandila was far away,” said Gupta.

He added,“From his (Nishant’s) clothes,he appeared to be someone from a good family. We thought he had lost his way. He was injured and not in a condition to talk.”

Gupta brought Nishant to his shop where soon a small crowd gathered. Somebody from the crowd noticed that he looked like the boy whose photograph was shown on a TV channel.

“We asked him if he was the same boy. He did not reply properly but asked for a cellphone,dialled a number and spoke to someone. The person on the other side confirmed that he was the same boy who had gone missing. Soon police arrived and took him away,” said Gupta.

The person Nishant spoke to was Sukhvant Singh Brar,one of the returning officers for the Youth Congress elections. Brar had stayed at the same hotel in Hardoi from where Nishant had gone missing on Monday morning.

Brar said,“I got this call from an unknown number about 2.30 pm. Nishant was on the other line and he immediately started scolding me. He asked me why I was giving statements on the TV. I told him that his family and everyone else was worried about him. Immediately,we informed the police,our head office and everybody concerned about his whereabouts.”

Prakash Joshi,the member of the Youth Congress Election Commission,said,“He was not able to speak much and said that he was beaten up. So,we decided to take him to the Trauma Center”.

At the Trauma Centre,Nishant was given first aid and allowed to go. However,the police took him away for questioning.

Chandra Prakash,the PRO of the Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University,said Nishant did not have any serious injuries. “His CT scan was normal. He had some scratches on his head for which we gave him first aid and released him within half-an-hour.”

Lucknow DIG Rajiv Krishna said Nishant seems to be under some pressure.

Sources from the Youth Congress said Nishant might have not been able to withstand the pressure of the election work. He had been camping here for the organisational polls in Misrikh Lok Sabha segment for about 15 days.

Nishant’s father and his wife reached Lucknow later in the evening.