Asad Rehman: Police action in Gorakhpur: Shaken and scared, residents recount day police ‘barged in’ // Adityanath’s Police Raj

NB: The police under the Sangh Parivar is now acting like a communal mob in uniform. Shame on the IPS officers who let this happen: poor people being brutally beaten and implicated in false cases just because they are Muslim. They talk of a uniform civil code; but will there ever be a uniform criminal code for India? Will we ever see respect for Article 21 of the Constitution, under which no one can be deprived of life and liberty without due process of law? Why has this 'parivar' chosen to destroy the rule of law, to eliminate the difference between legal and illegal violence? 

India will pay a heavy price for the wanton destruction of institutions unfolding before our eyes. And many people, including journalists, have chosen to avert their gaze. I mention journalists because it is their job to bring the facts to light, not cover them up. By doing so they have made themselves complicit in criminal deeds. May God forgive them. DS

Residents of Muslim-dominated areas in Gorakhpur city have similar stories to tell about Friday, December 20, when policemen allegedly entered their homes, hurled abuses at everyone, including women and children, broke their doors and beat up whoever was around. Several houses The Indian Express visited had broken doors. Nasir, 24, who lives in Ismailpur under Kotwali police station is standing outside his house with a plaster on his right hand and injury marks on his legs. “I am uneducated. I don’t know about the citizen-ship issue. I was standing outside my house when police came. They asked me what I am doing outside, I didn’t reply out of fear. They then beat me up with lathis,” alleges Nasir, an electrician. His neighbour Rizwan alleges that police just beat up whoever they found. “He is innocent. He was not arrested. This means he was beaten up just because he is from this area,” he says.

Muzaffarnagar: police and Hindutva groups attack Muslims in attempt to recreate 2013 riots


A few houses away, a 32-year-old woman, whose husband was booked and arrested under Section 144, says he has not been able to go to work since he was released on bail. “He is badly injured and is not talking to anyone. He says he was beaten up by 7-8 policemen. They kept him in jail for seven days. He can’t work because of the injuries,” says the woman, who has a seven-year-old daughter and lives in Ismailpur. Her husband is a daily-wage labourer who refused to talk, citing the “trauma”. “He won’t be able to talk,” the woman says, requesting anonymity out of “fear of the police”. The woman shows how bricks are holding their broken door in place. “They broke the door. If you go around, you will see those who have money have got their doors fixed, but those who don’t have put bricks behind the door to shield themselves from the cold,” she says.

Local residents in nearby Askarganj allege that policemen climbed on to the terraces of each house to look for the men and when they could not find them, they hurled abuses at the women and threatened them. A 50-year-old woman, who has a family of eight, shows how her legs have turned blue, allegedly due to lathicharge by police. “They were beating up boys in front of my house when I intervened. I thought if I intervene, they will stop, but they did not. They hit me too. At least five policemen beat me up,” she alleges. Refusing to tell her name, she says, “We can’t take on the police. We are very poor.”...
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/police-action-in-gorakhpur-shaken-and-scared-residents-recount-day-police-barged-in-6195328/


The family of Anas, a 21-year-old who was shot by the UP police a 
few metres from his home in Nehtaur, on 20 December. ISHAN TANKHA

Adityanath’s Police Raj
In the days preceding that Friday, protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act had intensified across the country, including in Delhi. Bijnor was among several districts in Uttar Pradesh where people had closed their shops in protest against the act. In villages such as Nagina and Sherkot, people also came to the streets to lodge their protest. In Nehtaur, though, residents told me, there was no call for any procession. People had simply kept their shops shut in solidarity. Yet, the police was deployed all over Nehtaur, a a Muslim-majority town. By late afternoon that day—20 December—the police had killed two young men in a Muslim-populated colony where no procession was taken out....
https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/nehtaur-bijnor-fear-up-police-defends-two-killings-state-rampage

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