'The plight of poor migrant workers of India’s most populous state -- Uttar Pradesh – has no parallel. They were compelled to walk hundreds of kilometres to reach their hometowns after losing livelihood and suspension of transport services. To add to their woes, arbitrary fares were demanded by those offered bus services. Also, bus drivers harassed them, asking them to show their Aadhaar cards, and also deboarded some of them in the middle of highways.
'A total of 120 people were packed inside the 40 to 50-seater bus with another 100 on the roof. They had travelled more than 550km over 40 hours — mostly in suffocating heat —and many of them had an even longer distance to cover. That was the account the police in Kanpur’s Naubasta area heard on Saturday night when they stopped the private bus to ask why it was flouting the lockdown.
'At the Anand Vihar Bus Terminal and its immediate surrounding areas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, the mass evacuation of thousands of daily-wage labourers and migrant workers is underway. Over the last five days, the national lockdown imposed to tackle COVID-19 has left a multitude of blue collar workers stranded, with nowhere to go. At the Anand Vihar Bus Terminal and its immediate surrounding areas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, the mass evacuation of thousands of daily-wage labourers and migrant workers is underway.
'The BJP’s Ghaziabad MLA has asked the police to shoot violators of the 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to contain the spread of the coronavirus. According to a report in the Deccan Herald, Nand Kishor Gurjar has also announced a cash reward of Rs 5,100 to every cop who shoots the violators. Calling the violators “traitors”, Gurjar said that “cops should break their legs….if they do not follow the orders then the police should shoot them in their legs’.’...'
'The journalist who wrote about members of the Musahar community eating grass in villages around the prime minister’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi has been served a notice by the district administration for spreading misinformation. Vijay Vineet, news editor of Jansandesh time, a 16-page newspaper which has five editions in the state, had filed a report with his colleague Manish Mishra about families in Koiripur village (Baragaon block) subsisting on the grass on March 26. The report was accompanied by pictures of children eating grass.
'A case that reeks of brazen abuse of power at a time when citizens are hard pressed to place full faith on the state machinery to contain the coronavirus pandemic has come to light in Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh police arrested Dr. Ashish Mittal on March 23, 2020. At the time, chief minister Adityanath had already imposed a lockdown.
'A district court lawyer in Kanpur was arrested on the charge of sedtion for retweeting a video of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and calling him a terrorist on Sunday. The man, Abdul Hannan, commented on a tweet by State Information Department’s Media Advisor Shalabh Mani Tripathi on Saturday. The tweet by Tripathi had a video of Adityanath’s Vidhan Sabha speech supporting cane charge on people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)...'
'In an apparent bid to avoid a 'Hindu' backlash, especially, when the next assembly polls in the state are due in two years times, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has given a go-ahead for the 'Ram Navami Mela' in Ayodhya dismissing concerns against its own advisories against large gatherings in view of the Coronavirus outbreak. According to some estimates, around one million devotees from across the country would be congregating in Ayodhya to take part in the 'Mela, which would be held from March 25 to April Two...'
'On Saturday, Congress party worker Sudhanshu Bajpai and his friend Ashwani Yadav were arrested from Bajpai’s residence in Lucknow, for putting up a poster outside the Bharatiya Janata Party’s city office. The poster, with large photographs of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, lists the “criminal records” of Adityanath, Prasad and five other BJP leaders – Sangeet Som, Suresh Rana, Sanjeev Balyan, Sadhvi Prachi and Umesh Malik...'
'Citizens Against Hate (CAH), a Delhi based collective of individuals and groups concerned with rising trend of hate mobilisation and crime. They released a report titled “Everyone has been Silenced – Police Excesses against anti-CAA protestors in Uttar Pradesh and the post-violence reprisal” put together by a team of human rights experts, defenders and lawyers.
