New Delhi: The Citizenship (Amendment) Act that was passed by Parliament in 2019 saw a wave of protests against the contentious law across the country. As the massive protests erupted leading to international scrutiny and criticism of the law, a violent crackdown to quell the protests was reported in many parts of India. The heart of this crackdown was Uttar Pradesh where cases of alleged police brutality against the protestors were reported from several areas resulting in the death of at least 23 people.
A report released by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), a human rights group based in Delhi, reveals that no attempt to either compensate the families of the dead or those injured has been made even after two years of the crackdown. Titled 'The Struggle for Equal Citizenship in Uttar Pradesh and its Costs: A saga of omnibus FIRs, Loot, Arrests and Harassment of Muslim minority', the report was released in the Press Club of India at New Delhi on Wednesday.
It highlighted "the sheer brazenness of the state machinery in its violation of almost all the Constitutional mandates of the state government while dealing with peaceful dissent". "No accountability and penalty on the state government is fixed even today. After two years of the 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 the loss of limbs and property. There has not been any significant attempt to initiate impartial investigations into police atrocities against the protesters. While the harassment of the protestors continues," the report read.
It said that based on verified information in the public domain and accessing legal documents, an estimated 350 First Information Reports (FIRs) were registered regarding these protests against around 5,000 named individuals and over 100,000 unknown persons, "which gives a free license to the state police to implicate any person in these cases and subject him/her to unnecessary harassment without any fault".
The findings also concluded that about 3,000 people (dominantly Muslim) were "illegally arrested without any due process of law under fabricated charges". Of them many, the report said, are still languishing in jails even after more than two years since the anti-CAA protests began. On the first call of all India protests against CAA and NRC on December 19 in the year 2019, the state administration, the APCR report said, intimidated around 3,000 people with ‘caution’ notices to stop them from exercising their fundamental right to protest.
"On the same day, around 3,305 people were detained which rose to 5,400 within two days and many were later implicated in the same FIRs as mentioned above. Over 500 recovery notices for the damages to the public property have been arbitrarily issued, without due legal process, across ten districts for damages worth an estimated Rs 3.55 crores which the Supreme Court recently termed as illegal and unconstitutional. However, this does not reverse the torture and harassment they faced and after succumbing to it, some even ended up paying these unlawful fines. In the Kanpur district alone, around 15 families, mostly daily wagers, unaware of the due legal process even paid Rs 13,476 each," the report added.
In this connection, the APCR has demanded the Union government rethink and revisit its stance on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 which violates Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India, taking note of the severe harm that this legislation has already done to the citizenry and the reputation of the nation. "Anti-CAA dissenters are the equal and bonafide citizens of the country, and a people’s government must respect the people’s mandate and repeal this unwarranted and unconstitutional legislation," the organisation said in its report.
APCR is a non-profit and non-governmental organization that was set up in the year 2006 to defend the rights of the underprivileged and marginalized sections of society.
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