Yogi govt unleashed reign of terror: Fact-finding team

Actors Swara Bhaskar and Zeeshan Ayub at Press Club of India where the fact finding report on UP was released.

There is a "reign of terror" in Uttar Pradesh where the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government is trying to crush the protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by "brazenly" targeting minorities, agitators and activists to suppress all kinds of dissent, a fact-finding team said on Thursday.

The report by the 'Ham Bharat ke Log: National Action Against CAA', which is an umbrella body of around 70 organisations, said there was "little doubt" that all this is happening under Adityanath's "personal direction, sanction and supervision".

"He (Adityanath) publicly announced a doctrine of revenge against the protesters. In a shocking audio tape in wide circulation, a senior police official can be heard saying that he has the Chief Minister's instructions and full immunity to beat the violent protesters to pulp so as to teach everyone a lesson. Sadly, none other than the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) has openly supported this wanton cruelty and breakdown of law and order," it said.

The fact-finding team, which consisted of activists Yogendra Yadav, Kavita Krishnan, Harsh Mander and Nadeem Khan, demanded that the state government must stop the "state-sponsored attack" on protesters, release innocent detainees and quash FIRs with large number of anonymous accused. It also demanded among others a probe by Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) to unravel the "truth about protests, violence, police action and killings".

Releasing the report along with other members, Swaraj India's Yadav said, "there is a reign of terror in UP and the instructions come directly from the Chief Minister himself. It was the Chief Minister himself spoke about revenge. Not a single law in the country allows police to seek revenge. But this is the message given to police."

Activist Mander said the BJP-RSS is wedded to a different idea of India, a divisive India, which is against the spirit of what Mahatma Gandhi propagated. Speaking about those killed in police firing in Meerut, AIPWA's Krishnan said false cases were being foisted upon the victims and their families.

"One of the young victims was an e-rickshaw driver. He was staying in Delhi in his teenage and had identification papers from Delhi. He stayed with his parents in Meerut for so many years but after he was shot dead, police now accuse him of being a mastermind who brought outsiders from Delhi. Everyone in the neighbourhood told us that he was very well in Meerut working and that he was not involved," she said.

Khan of the United Against Hate said that there is a competition among police officers about who is filing more FIRs against protesters.

"The situation in UP is that many people have left their homes. Kanpur alone has an FIR against 22,500 unknown. People there says there has never been such a huge protest in Kanpur," he said adding families of victims of police firing are unable to get post mortem reports. He also claimed that FIRs were also filed against family members of victims so that they keep silence.

The report said, "media persons, human rights activists and even lawyers have been detained for trying to find out about the detainees. Opposition leaders have been prevented from visiting the places affected by police attrocities. Therefore, we still do not quite know the extent of police repression."