They have demanded immediate end to reign of terror in the state
Abdul Bari Masoud | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – Releasing a fact-finding report on police atrocities in Uttar Pradesh, prominent civil society groups and eminent personalities including Harsh Mander and Yogendra Yadav on Thursday sought an immediate end to the atmosphere of terror unleashed by the Yogi Adityanath regime.
The report, released under the joint banner of ‘Ham Bharat ke Log’ condemned the targeting of the Muslim community in India’s largest state and sought an independent probe through a Supreme Court-monitored SIT into the police atrocities in the state. They also urged the apex court as also the Human Rights and Minorities Commissions to take suo motto cognizance of the brutal suppression of dissent in the state. They took CM Adityanath to task for the grim scenario in the state.
Addressing a press conference here, the activists alleged that for the last one week, UP remained under a reign of terror and the BJP-led state government employed unlawful and lethal tactics to harass and intimidate the citizens protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (“CAA”) and the National Register of Citizens (“NRC”).
They also alleged that the state authorities were brazenly targeting Muslims, as also other people’s movements and human rights activists, throwing to the winds well-established democratic norms, Constitutional rights and the due process of law. “The goal is not just to suppress all dissent against CAA/NRC in Uttar Pradesh, but to send a signal to anyone who may dare to raise (his or her) voice against anything.”
Raising a host of demands, they said the Yogi government must stop the “state-sponsored” attack, release innocent detainees forthwith, and quash FIRs filed against a large number of suspects. Yogendra Yadav said, “We wanted to release the report in Lucknow, but our friends in UP told us the Yogi government will not allow this to happen.”
Blaming the CM, he said that under this government, the UP police has acquired a notoriety for repeatedly breaching the due process of law, including in over 3,500 ‘encounters’ by state cops. “Ever since the beginning of the anti-CAA/NRC protests, the UP police has crossed all limits of a Constitutional democracy. There is little doubt that all this is happening under the personal direction, sanction and supervision of the CM.”
Referring to the video of Bijnor SSP, Yadav said the CM has publicly announced a doctrine of revenge against the protesters. “In a shocking audio tape now in wide circulation, a senior police official can be heard saying that he has the CM’s instructions and full immunity to beat the violent protesters to pulp, so as to teach everyone a lesson.” He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for supporting the police brutalities. “Sadly, none other than the PM has openly supported this wanton cruelty and breakdown of law and order.”
Yadav said, “We demand a credible and independent inquiry by an SIT under the supervision of the Supreme Court so as to ascertain the truth about the protests, violence, police action and killings.” He said the situation was tense and fearful as even journalists, rights activists and lawyers have been detained for their innocent act of attempting to find out details of the detainees in police stations.
Yadav also took a dig on the Army chief Bipin Rawat’s comments on the ongoing public protests, saying, “When he spoke about this, the PM was in his mind.”
“What we are witnessing in UP is worse than the Emergency days, as the Yogi government is treating Muslims as second class citizens,” Harsh Mander alleged. He had led a fact-finding team to Aligarh Muslim University where the police had turned the university to a battleground on December 15. “It seems that the UP government has waged a war against the Muslim community in the state,” he said.
“Worse, the Yogi government has made it very hard to gather information about what exactly is happening in the state,” Mander said, and slammed the PM, saying Modi spoke lies.
Activist Kavita Krishnan, who visited Meerut and the surrounding areas, said all the six persons killed in the police firing belonged to extremely poor financial background, they were the sole bread-earners of their families and they had nothing to do with the protests. She said the police resorted to firing below the waist without following the police manual and did so with an aim of killing the targets.
Nadeem Khan said it seemed there is competition among the cops in the UP police force to be in the good books of the Yogi government. He said the police registered more than one lakh FIRs and pasted “reward posters” all over state with pictures of the protesters without any attempt to establish their guilt. Because of this, he said the people, particularly the Muslims, are “so terrorized that they are guarding their houses at nights.”
Charge Sheet Against UP Government, Police
The report released by the “Ham Bharat ke Log: National Action Against Citizenship Amendment” said it was clear the police and the authorities in Uttar Pradesh were guilty of the following:
- Denial of Constitutional rights to legitimate, democratic and peaceful protests: Authorities clamped down on anti-CAA/NRC protests even before these started. Permission for peaceful assembly and demonstration was summarily denied, Section 144 used indiscriminately and activists who could have launched a protest were detained without any basis. This, while the police failed to prevent violent protests by supporters of CAA / NRC, in particular, the demonstrations led by members of the BJP.
- Curtailing of information flow. The authorities have imposed internet shutdowns and imposed limits on transportation of people to prevent peaceful protests against CAA / NRC.
- Unlawful Mass Detentions/Arrests. Police has undertaken mass detention and arrest of protesters using outdated colonial era laws (Section 144). Human rights activist and himself a retired Inspector General of Police, Shri SR Darapuri, currently under treatment for cancer, has been arrested. Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey was placed under house arrest. A score of other social activists are under arrest. There are several cases of police detention without production before a magistrate as required by law. As of December 25, the UP police said they had arrested 925 people and preventively detained more than 5,500 others. We still do not have a full picture of the number of persons detained without a charge or those who are missing. Indiscriminate detentions and arrests are going on and Muslim localities spend nights in fear of midnight knock.
- Reward posters: All over the state, ‘reward posters’ have come up with pictures of the protesters, without any attempt to establish their guilt, offering rewards to anyone who offers information.
- Inappropriate Charges. Review of FIRs against detainees shows that the authorities have charged detainees with crimes that are not warranted by the alleged facts in the relevant FIRs, including charges like attempt-to-murder, rioting armed with a deadly weapon and criminal intimidation. Large numbers of FIRs have been lodged with the number of suspects (anonymous accused) running into more than 30,000 persons. This gives the police the licence to arrest anyone at any stage.
- Torture during custody: While a full picture of the treatment of those detained and arrested is yet to emerge, there are reports that they have been subjected to merciless beating and torture of various kinds. The same treatment was meted out to juvenile detainees in Muzaffarnagar, who were placed with adults, in violation of the law.
- Intimidation of Detainees’ Friends and Family: It has been reported that friends, family and counsel of detainees, who have approached the authorities, have faced serious harassment, intimidation and in some cases detention.
- Excessive, Deadly Force: Police is using excessive (often deadly) force against CAA / NRC protestors. At least 18 protesters, all Muslims, have died since the protests started, including an 8-year old boy. Every available evidence points to police firing as the cause of these deaths. Yet the police claim that except in one case people died from crossfire from locally made weapons and that the police only fired rubber bullets and teargas shells. However, a video from Kanpur showing a policeman firing from his revolver at the protestors belies these claims.
- Denial of treatment to injured and dignity to the dead: The victims of police firing were denied medical aid by private hospitals on orders from the authorities. Post-mortem was delayed. Families of the dead have not received post-mortem reports. Relatives of the deceased were pressurized not to bring the dead body home and were rushed into burying it outside their family burial ground. No compensation has been offered to any injured or to the family of the deceased.
- Punitive action targeted at Muslim Community. There are more than one reliable reports of the police raiding Muslim colonies, entering homes, ransacking them, and detaining people indiscriminately. In several places, state authorities have sealed shops and commercial establishments owned by Muslims. Notices have been issued to Muslims unrelated to any protest or violence to compensate for the damage to public property.”
Civil Society Demands
The civil groups also made following demands:
- Police officials and personnel, whose complicity in police atrocities is beyond doubt, should be suspended and all the guilty should be brought to book;
- Suitable compensation should be paid to those injured in police action and to the family of the deceased;
- Citizens’ Constitutional right to assemble and protest in a peaceful manner should be restored;
- To ease the climate of fear and suspicion, and to allow a meaningful dialogue, the Government of India must announce that it is not going ahead with NRC and NRC-linked-NPR;
Yadav said civil society groups will meet on Wednesday in the national capital and in Mumbai on December 30 to chalk out the future course of action.
