Police on Saturday detained or put under house arrest over 100 Samajwadi Party leaders, including Chandauli MP Virendra Singh, to prevent them from going to Dalmandi, where a demolition drive is underway to widen the roads around Kashi Vishwanath temple.

Singh was taken into custody from Babatpur airport, from where he had planned to reach Dalmandi and meet people whose houses were razed.

“The government is demolishing the houses without any legal authority. People of the locality are flummoxed as the cops are putting them in jail if they question the autocratic demolition drive,” Singh told reporters at the airport.

The Yogi Adityanath government has torn down 80 of the 187 buildings earmarked for demolition in the congested Dalmandi lane.

A building’s owner had set his property on fire early this month to protest the drive aimed at executing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious project of broadening the seven-foot-wide road into 17.50 metres and creating more space around the Kashi Vishwanath temple.

Modi represents the Varanasi constituency in the Lok Sabha.

The majority of the property owners in Dalmandi are Hindus, but over 70 per cent of shopkeepers, who used to run their business from rented premises, are Muslims.

Local SP leader Asad Ansari, who was put under house arrest, said: “Over 100 SP leaders have either been detained at different police stations or kept under house arrest. We had informed the local administration on Friday that we would not disrupt law and order and only meet the victims of the demolition drive, but they didn’t let us go there to see the ground situation.”

A veteran journalist of Varanasi told The Telegraph that over 60 per cent of the building owners in Dalmandi were Hindus and the rest Muslims. “But 70 per cent of shops are run by Muslims. The government didn’t know this before it prepared the project and started the demolition drive. However, it can’t do anything because it needs more open space around the temple to accommodate the devotees.”

“While building the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, the government had removed a large number of buildings from the area around the shrine. They were replaced by commercial buildings. The government is now realising that it needs space for the devotees who keep waiting in long queues in the narrow lane from early morning to evening. Sadly, Dalmandi is the only marketplace in Varanasi where household goods are sold at a moderate price. It is also the only wholesale market of the district,” he added.

A government officer, who didn’t want to be named, said the sanctioned plans of most of the houses were not available.