'A senior police officer from the sensitive town of Meerut in west Uttar Pradesh was filmed making extremely communal statements in a Muslim locality last Friday, when police personnel were dealing with violent protests that had broken out in the city after Friday prayers on over the new citizenship law. In a mobile phone video accessed by NDTV, Akhilesh Narayan Singh, who serves as Superintendent of Police(City) of Meerut, virtually the second in command in the district, can be seen walking in a narrow lane wearing riot gear.
In the context of widespread reports of police violence against anti-CAA-NRC-NPR protestors, particularly Muslims and particularly in BJP-ruled states, there are a number of citizen's initiatives to compile and document evidence of this brutality...
'On 20 December, a day after the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath vowed to “take revenge” against those who had destroyed property during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the state police stormed Muzaffarnagar. That day and night, Mehmood Nagar and Khalapar—both Muslim-majority neighbourhoods in the city—descended into violence, with a rampage by the UP police. According to residents, the police force used tear gas, lathi charges, and opened fire on the Muslim locals. Noor Mohammad, a young resident of Khalapar, was shot in the head and died.
'A senior police officer in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district has been filmed asking residents of a Muslim-dominated locality to “go to Pakistan” during protest against the amended Citizenship Act on December 20, The Indian Express reported on Saturday. At a protest in Meerut’s Lisadi Gate area last Friday, the police had claimed that protestors began stone-pelting while residents claimed that the police opened fire at peaceful protestors. Five people died in the process. Later reports suggested that a sixth person, 24-year-old Aleem, also died in the firing...'
'The clampdown of the Uttar Pradesh police against the Muslim community has now extended to those who have not taken part in the ongoing protests. In three villages located less than 30 km from Lucknow, at least 100 Muslim men have been made to furnish a bond of Rs 50,000 each under Section 107/116 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which virtually serves as an assurance that they will not participate in any protest. They will have to appear in court every fortnight or so for at least the next six months.
'A Norwegian woman tourist has been asked to leave the country after she was found to have participated in an anti-CAA protest here early this week, violating visa norms, a senior official said here on Friday. “Our enquiry found that she has violated visa norms and so she was asked to go back,” Anoop Krishnan, Officer in the Foreigners Regional Registration Office told PTI.
'...On 23 December, I visited Nehtaur, met the two families whose relatives were killed, visited the place where the police claimed the protestors had pelted stones at them and spoke to several eyewitnesses who were present there at the time. The residents said there had been no protest. They told me that they had only stepped out of their homes to attend the Friday prayers.
'...If you followed the news in 2019, you might have got the feeling that the Supreme Court was running the country. You wouldn’t be far off. Every issue of any consequence, and many of none whatsoever, found their way to the Court. Through the course of the year, the Court decidedor chose not to decidecases that went to the very heart of India’s constitutional law and Indian society. On occasion, when concerned citizens looked to the Court to stand up for civil liberties, it let the matter slide; when it did take action, its orders often left loopholes the government could exploit.
'In UP, Muslims have been picked up en masse from all over,thrashed, their homes barged into, properties confiscated & met with live fire on streets. And no one will be prosecuted because it is being done by the State. UP is already Hindu Rashtra. A thread on chilling reports(1/n)...'
'Hounding of senior officers, protests across the country and attempts — perceived and real — to change the constitutional ethos of the country have sparked a kind of unrest among civil servants, who have taken to WhatsApp groups to share their concerns and grievances. Several IAS, IPS and IRS officers who ThePrint spoke to said there is a palpable sense of vulnerability, insecurity and concern among officers, which they are wary of expressing publicly, but do so in the safety of closed WhatsApp groups with their peers from the services.
