Atrocities inflicted on UP Muslims, Rule of law collapsed: Jury

Lucknow: Little do we know about the Yogi government violence that targeted only one section of people that is the Muslim community, brutally killing people, shooting them to death.

The ruling government’s barbarism against protestors opposing CAA, NPR, NRIC is not only witnessed in UP but also in varsities where the future generations has been attacked, assaulted, shamefully by none other than the uniformed keepers of law and order, the Telegraph reported.

Jamia Millia Islamia University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh University were targetted, the keepers of law turned savage against these centres targeting students, staff.

Meanwhile, the women of Shaheen Bagh continue to silently protest as they shed light through wintry nights on the aspirations of their fellow citizens across India.

Surprisingly, however, very scant attention has been paid to the extraordinary horrors inflicted on the hapless Muslims of Uttar Pradesh with the State CM misusing power, sheltering behind the Constitution claiming to take revenge against this community with inadequate reportage from media that has kept these chilling details under wraps not exposing it to the outside world.

UP State’s administration, including the police, did become clear as a reign of terror that was unleashed on the Muslims.

Soon after little reportage of the terror, the police army unleashed on Muslims, a “people’s tribunal” was held in Delhi on January 16 to expose the shocking chain of events that swept the capital as well as the western Uttar Pradesh.

The fate of UP Muslims became a casualty in the state with increased hate assault by the keepers of the law.

Following the incidents, assaults against the community, a jury for the people’s tribunal was set up comprising of former justices of the Supreme Court, a former chief justice of Delhi High Court, eminent academics and retired civil servants.

The jury was “deeply worried and dismayed by the testimonies placed before it. It is convinced that the entire state machinery, led from the top, acted with grave prejudice and perpetrated violence targeting one particular community, the state’s Muslim population, and the social activists leading the movement”.

Having heard the testimonies of lawyers, field workers, human rights defenders, civil society activists, doctors and eyewitnesses and watching the videos of victims, the jury opined that “the UP police has been guilty of inflicting enormous violence targeting the Muslim community, peaceful protesters, and not even sparing those (who) were not involved in the protest”.

The police brutality also included “the arrest of and filing of false cases against innocent people; the destruction of vehicles and property by entering people’s homes, as well as CCTV cameras; threats to and intimidation of people picked up (for) speaking the truth about what happened; communalized abuses against victims; custody violence even on minors; firing and killing people without following the law; preventing medical personnel from treating the injured and threatening the injured against accessing medical care”.

The jury also came to the understanding that the victims’ complaints about police brutality, violence and destruction of property were either not filed or were filed incorrectly while, on the other hand, thousands of FIRs were filed against unnamed people on the charge that they had become violent, the intention to continue harassment and intimidation.

The jury also found that the notices issued to the public for the damage allegedly caused to public property, without specifying culpability in a court of law, was entirely illegal.

Surprisingly, one of the most chilling revelations to have emerged from the tribunal was the repeated charge that none of the hospitals would admit even seriously injured people as they were apparently concerned about displeasing the government, as a sequence many individuals lost their lives.

Such conduct on the part of the state or the institution would be a violation of Article 21, Supreme Court rulings and international treaties to which India is a signatory, besides the matter of the Hippocratic oath.

Allegations of ambulances were not provided when necessary, when the Red Cross is honoured even in war also made it to the jury.

This despicable conduct by those concerned would likely have put them in front of an international tribunal investigating human rights had Uttar Pradesh been an independent country.

The jury concluded: “The state of affairs in UP shows a complete collapse of rule of law. In fact, the very state administration that is charged with protecting the rule of law is perpetrating violence upon its own people.”