Six pay for damage to property in UP protests

Lucknow: Six people, who were served recovery notices for damages to public and private property caused during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)

Lucknow: Six people, who were served recovery notices for damages to public and private property caused during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur, submitted demand drafts worth Rs 80,778 to the district administration on Tuesday.

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“The six persons submitted a draft each of the recovery amounts they were asked to pay,” said additional district magistrate (city) Vivek Srivastava said.

The six were among 29 people, who were issued recovery notices for allegedly damaging public and private property during the anti-CAA protests on December 20 and 21 in Kanpur’s Babupurwa and Baconganj localities.

“Recovery notices of Rs 2.83 lakh were issued against 21 persons. Of these, these six persons had recovery amount of Rs 13,463 each against them,” said police superintendent Rajkumar Agarwal.

The six were identified as Yasin, Arman, Dilshad, Irfan, Gurgut and Liaqat Ali.

The CAA’s passage in December to fast-track the citizenship process for non-Muslims, who have entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh before 2015, triggered protests across the country. Opponents of the law insist it is discriminatory and unconstitutional as it leaves out the Muslims and links faith to citizenship in a secular country.

Critics say it could result in the expulsion or detentions of Muslims unable to provide the documentation if the law is seen in the context of a proposed pan-India National Register of Citizens (NRC). A process carried out in Assam to detect undocumented immigrants led to the exclusion of around two million people from the NRC in 2018. The government has maintained it has no immediate plans for implementing a countrywide NRC.

As many as 22 people were killed and 83 injured in the violence during anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh on December 20 and 21. The government began sending recovery notices to alleged rioters after the protests. It has drawn flak for them from rights organisations, which have maintained they violated the due process .

The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Friday approved an ordinance to allow the authorities to recover losses to public and private property caused during riots, demonstrations, political processions, and illegal agitations.

The move came four days after the Allahabad high court pulled up the state government and asked it to remove hoardings containing names, photos, and addresses in Lucknow of those, who had allegedly participated in the demonstrations against the CAA. The people, who featured on the hoardings, have been asked to pay compensation for the alleged damages caused during the protests.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court referred the matter to a larger bench after the Uttar Pradesh government appealed the high court ruling.

Uttar Pradesh minister Suresh Khanna on Friday said the Supreme Court has observed in the past that a strict law was needed to check damages to public and private property during political processions, illegal demonstrations, strikes, and agitations. He said the court has asked for videos, investigations and setting up claims tribunals for recovery of damages.

Opposition parties like Samajwadi Party have called the ordinance “undemocratic and draconian”.