Embarrassment for UP police: Cases against arrested CAA protesters failing in courts

Cases against the people, who had been arrested on charges indulging in violence and rioting while protesting against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act in different parts of Uttar Pradesh last month, have been failing to stand judicial scrutiny.

Hundreds of CAA protesters, who were arrested by the cops, have been granted bail by the courts in the past few days as the police failed to produce any evidence to link them with the offences they were charged with.

In many cases, the courts trashed the police allegations saying that there was no evidence to support them.

In some cases, the police were forced to drop serious charges, including those of attempt to murder, against the protesters in a desperate bid to thwart their bail pleas in the courts.

On Wednesday, a district court in Bijnore, about 425 kilometres from here, which had witnessed large scale anti-CAA protests, granted bail to 48 protesters after the cops failed to produce any evidence to back the charges.

In the state capital of Lucknow also, a majority of the protesters, including some high profile ones, were released on bail again after the failure of the cops to furnish even prima facie evidence against them.

Human rights activists said that the UP police had made arrests under pressure of the state government. ''The police did not have evidence yet they arrested the protesters and charged them with serious crimes,'' said an activist while speaking to DH here on Thursday.

A senior UP police officer admitted that the arrests were made in haste. ''It (granting of bail and the observations of the courts) is an embarrassment...but we had made it clear that innocent people will not be harassed,'' the officer said in an apparent bid to defend the police.

As many as 21 people were killed and around one thousand arrested during the anti-CAA protests in the state last month.