To 25 February 2020
Mr. Ramnath Kovind
Hon’ble President of India
New Delhi
Respected Sir,
For more than 70 days now, our country has seen massive and sustained protests against the union government’s divisive and dangerous Citizenship Amendment Act. This has been a movement which has not only affirmed equal citizenship as a right, but shown the whole world that citizenship is not something written on a piece of paper, but a collective value that is the basis of any constitutional democracy. However, not everyone is happy that common citizens are asserting their ownership and sense of belonging to our nation. The way things have unfolded in the national capital in the last two days is horrifying and totally unacceptable. After a BJP leader openly declared that they will ‘clear the streets’ of all protesters, violence has spread and escalated across Northeast Delhi.
I have seen images and videos of police standing idly by as rioting, looting and arson engulfed the streets. There are various credible reports of right-wing goons carrying out despicable acts of violence as the police look on ineffectively. Reporters have written about being asked their religion before being allowed to pass through. Citizens in Maujpur, Bhajanpura, Chandbagh, Seelampur, Jaffrabad and other areas of Northeast Delhi stayed up all night holding vigils for the safety of their neighbourhoods, afraid that hate-filled mobs might run through at any moment, unchecked by police or state authorities and dozens of innocent people killed including a policeman.
This is no ordinary situation, and it hasn’t come about suddenly. For months now we have seen members of the ruling party and even central ministers instigating mobs and openly inciting violence against protesters, calling them ‘infiltrators’, ‘Pakistani’ and much worse. We have already seen in Jamia Millia Islamia and Shaheen Bagh how individuals responded to this call to violence and opened fire at citizens on the streets. That unchecked incitement has now reached a new phase, where organised mobs are conducting violent riots. The police and central government is directly responsible for them through its crimes of omission and commission. In this time of unfolding hate and madness, the government is shirking even its basic constitutional duty of protecting the life of every individual. Hence, one demands that not only police put an immediate end to the violence, but also those rioters and those who are inciting them with hateful Hindutva rhetoric be but behind the bars.
I request your kind office to immediately consider the following demands and instruct the central and state governments to act on the same:
To restore normalcy, law and order in the National Capital, New Delhi;
To rollback discriminatory CAA 2019, stop the procedure of NPR which is the first step of NRIC and conduct the census procedure similar to 2010;
To hold immediate peace meetings with local religious, political, social leaders and citizens in all affected areas;
To order time bound high level judicial enquiry into riot and arson carried out in Northeast Delhi;
To order immediate arrest of persons responsible for inciting violence, including Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur and also to book those media persons responsible for instigating violence;
To arrest the guilty police officials involved in assisting violent Hindutva rioters;
To book and punish all the culprits involved in genocide, arson & riots in NE Delhi;
To set up court monitored experts’ panel to evaluate the scale of loss, both human and financial due to these riots in a time bound manner. To immediately provide relief and compensation for victims and their families based on the report by the judiciary-monitored committee;
To order the Government of India to immediately provide compensation for families of victims who lost their lives in these riots and genocide;
To provide protection for all Anti-CAA-NPR-NRC protests sites in New Delhi including the various Shaheen Bagh Protests.
Hope your kind office will do the needful to instil confidence in our executive.
Thanks and regards
Syed Azharuddin
A Citizen of India