23 killed, 3,000 illegally arrested, 500 recovery notices issued without due legal process, 350 FIRs registered, new study documents UP Police’s repression against the Anti-CAA protesters.

Waquar Hasan 

NEW DELHI – A report on Uttar Pradesh government’s action against 2019 Anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protesters said that state bodies have been making concerted efforts not just to deny justice to the victims but also exact revenge from those who had protested against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019 in Uttar Pradesh.

“There is an ongoing concerted effort by all the state bodies to not just deny justice to the survivors and victims’ but continue to extract ‘revenge’ and completely erase the battles of survival of Muslims and of civil society at large, from public memory,” said the report about those who faced Uttar Pradesh’s government action for protesting against the draconian citizenship law.

The report titled “The Struggle for Equal Citizenship in Uttar Pradesh and its Cost” prepared by civil rights groups under the banner of Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) has been released by prominent human rights defenders on Wednesday.

The report highlighted the blatant abuse of power perpetrated by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’ in a predetermined and systematic way, the weaponisation of state machinery and strategic declaration of war against its own citizens.

“After two years of this ghastly repression of the civil protest, there has been no attempt to either compensate the families of the dead, or to the survivors who suffered loss of limbs and property. There has not been any significant attempt to initiate impartial investigations into police atrocities against the protesters nor the ongoing cases dropped against the latter,” noted the report.

Soon after the passage of the CAA in Parliament in December 2019, massive protests had broken out across the country against the citizenship law that excludes Muslims from the list of religious groups to be considered for citizenship. Many districts of Uttar Pradesh were rocked by spontaneous protests in December 2019 itself. The state government responded by coming down heavily on the protesters.

According to the report, 23 Muslims were killed in the police action. Most of them were daily wagers and laborers.

“The State has completely shirked away responsibility for these deaths. All these deaths were caused by bullet injuries. Post mortems were carried out under questionable circumstances. FIR’s were not registered. Proper burials were not allowed. 8 Special Investigation Teams (SIT’s) were set up; however no arrests have been made till now,” the report noted.

Apart from the deaths, around 350 FIRs were filed against around 5,000 identified individuals and over 1,00,000 unidentified persons. Besides, about 3,000 people were illegally arrested. Many of those individuals (predominantly Muslim) remained in jails under fabricated charges, even after more than two years since the anti-CAA protests began, said the report.

The protesters were also issued recovery notices. The report found that over 500 recovery notices have been arbitrarily issued, without due legal process, across ten districts for damages worth an estimate of Rs.3.55 crore. This has caused protracted harassment and trauma to those who have been targeted.

The report asked the state government to “immediately release a comprehensive statement on the number of FIRs registered, people arrested, detained, accused, bailed, booked under stringent anti-terror legislations and other draconian laws” and to immediately withdraw ‘all the fabricated cases  filed against more than one lakh unknown peaceful anti-CAA protesters’.

The report has also demanded compensation for those who were killed in the police action and a court-monitored inquiry into the state repression against the protesters.