Movable assets of anti-CAA protesters who damaged public property to be auctioned: Official

The district administration here will auction this month movable properties of two men accused of vandalism during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in last December, an official said on Thursday.

Lucknow District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash said movable assets of Maahenoor Choudhary and Dharamveer Singh, who are accused of damaging properties during the anti-CAA protests, will be put up for auction on July 16.

On Tuesday, a garment and a junk store in Hasanganj area were attached.

Choudhary owned the junk store while Singh was the assistant manager in the garment store.

The attachments were done under the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private property ordinance-2020 on orders passed by Additional District Magistrate (Tans Gomti) Vishwa Bhushan Mishra, a district administration official had said on Wednesday.

The protests against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) turned violent in the city on December 19, 2019. The district administration assessed loss of crores to public property in the arsoning and brick batting.

The administration had sent recovery notices worth about Rs 1.55 crore to over 50 people for the damages allegedly done by them during the protests.

In March, the district administration displayed on hoarding the photographs and addresses of protesters, including Congress leader Sadaf Jafar, retired IPS SR Darapuri and activist Mohammad Shoaib.

After the spread of coronavirus and a suggestion from the Allahabad High Court, the Lucknow administration on March 20 had stopped all coercive actions such as the attachment of properties and arresting the protesters to recover the damages.