UP Police Totally Communalised, Tortured Me, Says Activist Sadaf Jafar

By Dilip -
LUCKNOW: Sadaf Jafar smiled as she walked out of jail and into her sister’s arms on Tuesday morning. “Sangharsh jari hai. I have nothing to fear now,” she said, as she turned to face the cameras pointing at her, and pumped her fist in the air. Jafar, a political activist and teacher, who had recently joined the opposition Congress Party, was arrested on 19 December, while she filmed a peaceful protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act 
(CAA) descend into chaos in Lucknow.  

 The 43-year-old mother was the only woman arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police that day. Following her incarceration, her family said the police did not tell them where she was for almost two days. They also alleged she was thrashed in custody. In an interview with 
HuffPost India, her first after she was released on bail on Tuesday, Jafar gave a blow by blow account of how she was assaulted by male and female constables on 19 December. But more than their batons striking her back, the Shia Muslim woman said it was their language that betrayed just how communal the UP Police is. 

“They beat me. They mouthed the filthiest abuses that you won’t be able to print. They did not give me food and water. I was completely dehumanised,“she said. “Thanks to this BJP government, I know the extent to which a person can be dehumanised.”  “They kept saying, ’You are Pakistani. You eat here, you have children here, but you support Pakistan,” she said, “I could have never believed a police force could be filled with so much communalism and hate, but now I know.” The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in UP,  Jafar said, was determined reduce the broad-based movement against the CAA and the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) to a “Hindu-Muslim issue.” ... read more:

see also
Over 1000 Scientists, Academics Demand Withdrawal of Citizenship Bill // Citizenship Amendment Bill is a bid to fashion an ethnic democracy
Bengal Imam who lost son to communal clashes calls for peace // Students Across India Rise Up To Protest Citizenship Act And Police Brutality
Deb Mukharji: CAA-NRC: Lessons from the Assam experience  
Jab Hindu Muslim raazi / to kya karega Nazi
The split wide open: India is at risk of alienating allies by citizenship programme
‘Am glad I went’: Ramachandra Guha explains why he joined CAA protests
Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Discrimination, not justice
The real tukde-tukde gang
Can democracy be defended by alliances with communalists?
Police action in Gorakhpur: residents recount day police ‘barged in’ / Adityanath’s Police Raj
Decline, Debasement and Devastation in the All India Services. By P. S. Appu (IAS, Retd)
Advice to the Young
Naxalites should lay down their arms and challenge the ruling class to abide by the Constitution
Jairus Banaji on the history of Indian capitalists; and the BJP's assault on human rights
Agenda for Social Democracy
UP Cops Thrash Former Teacher After CAA Protest In Lucknow, Says Lawyer // ‘Detained in police facility, I heard screams all night… It was horrific’
Devangshu Datta: Read Jana Gana Mana, in full
These Are the 25 People Killed During Anti-Citizenship Amendment Act Protests
Us versus us
Samar Halarnkar: In the time of Godse, a search for Hindus who will stand with Gandhi
Gold medalist from Pondy University who boycotted convocation in protest against CAA
‘Muslims have 150 countries to go to, Hindus have only India’: Gujarat CM // Insects Out & Squirming Means Medicine Works: BJP Secy on Protests

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