'An FIR was filed against Magsaysay Award winner and human rights activist Sandeep Pandey for allegedly making inappropriate comments against Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar during his speech at the Aligarh Muslim University. On Tuesday, national vice president of Hindu Mahasabha Rajiv Kumar filed a complaint alleging that Pandey made the comments while addressing anti-citizenship law protestors at AMU on Sunday, police said.
'Raising slogans of ‘azadi’ (freedom) “in the name of protests” will amount to sedition and invite harsh action, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Wednesday while speaking in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Addressing a rally in Kanpur, he said “people living on Indian soil will not be allowed to conspire” against the country. “In the name of dharna and demonstration, if you raise slogans of azadi that were once raised in Kashmir, it will come under sedition and the government will take the harshest action,” said Mr. Adityanath...'
'Cracking down on protesters in an unusual manner, the Uttar Pradesh police officials reportedly snatched the blankets, utensils and food items of residents demonstrating against the amended Citizenship Act near the Clock Tower in Lucknow's old quarters. Miffed by the action, several took to Twitter to post videos and photos of the incident on Saturday. The posts soon started circulating on social media with '#KAMBALCHOR_UPPOLICE' becoming one of the top trends on Twitter...'
'Most of the dead were Muslim daily wagers who succumbed to alleged police bullets. Close to a month after the killings, only three families have received post-mortem reports, say activists... Twenty three people were killed in the brutal state crackdown during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) and the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Uttar Pradesh. Chilling details are now emerging about the kind of repression unleashed in the state that has left many questions unanswered...
'When Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government hastily served notices to more than 300 people for allegedly damaging public property during the recent anti-CAA protests, many recalled how hundreds of serious criminal cases against him and his Hindu Yuva Vahini members are still pending. But a bigger indictment than these cases are the annual reports of Uttar Pradesh Police’s intelligence units – which I have accessed – against the Hindu Yuva Vahini, an outfit that Adityanath established...
'...On December 19, when there was a call for protest against CAA, we decided to conduct a peaceful protest at Parivartan Chowk. Suddenly, a group of boys wearing skull caps came and started pelting stones. I found it strange that, even though Section 144 had been imposed, the police couldn’t detect a group of protesters carrying bricks and petrol. I can say with responsibiity that the stone-pelting was orchestrated. Another strange thing that happened was that when the arson started, someone drove a state transport bus at the protest spot. Police kept standing but didn’t take any action.
'Mohammad Faisal, a Rajasthan based lawyer, has accused the Uttar Pradesh Police of wrongful arrest during the ongoing anti-CAA protests in the state. Faisal, a lawyer based out of Kota district in Rajasthan, has claimed that he had visited Uttar Pradesh's Shamli to help people involved in anti-CAA protests, who were falsely implicated by the UP Police. He claimed that he was wrongly picked by the SOG team of Uttar Pradesh Police from inside the Kairana Court in UP's Shamli.
'“There was a lady constable who hit me on the head many times with her helmet. She hit me so much that the helmet broke,” said Dalit activist and mathematician Pawan Rao Ambedkar as he narrated his woeful ordeal in jail to the Huffington Post. Pawan Ambedkar, 37, was one of the people who were caught in the brutal assault by the Uttar Pradesh police that it unleashed on protestors in agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Many activists, including Sadaf Jafar and S R Darapuri among others were arrested during the protest.
'“You are a Hindu, why are you friends with Muslims.” This is what the Uttar Pradesh police allegedly told Robin Verma, an activist and teacher, who was arrested in connection with the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in Lucknow on December 20, 2019. Released from the Lucknow district jail on Tuesday after being granted bail last week, Mr. Verma narrated his ordeal to The Hindu and alleged that police physically tortured and insulted him and even threatened to degrade his wife and infant daughter...'
'A minister in the Uttar Pradesh government threatened, saying that he will bury alive those people who raise anti-Yogi Adityanath and anti- Narendra Modi slogans. Uttar pradesh minister Raghuraj Singh said, " I will bury all such people alive who make objectionable comments against prime minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath." He was referring to those students who had raised slogans against the prime minister and chief minister during anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest in the Aligarh Muslim University campus.'
