The state of affairs in Uttar Pradesh 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,” said the jury after hearing testimonies of field workers, lawyers, human rights defenders, civil society activists, doctors, eyewitness accounts during a daylong People’s Tribunal on State Action in UP: Citizenship, Democracy and Protest at Indian Society of International Law, Delhi on January 16.
The Jury members comprised Justice A P Shah, Justice Sudarshan Reddy, Justice V Gopala Gowda, Shantha Sinha, Prof Irfan Habib, Deb Mukherji, Chaman Lal, Dr. N C Saxena and Anirudh Kala.
“The UP police have been guilty of inflicting enormous violence targeting the Muslim community, peaceful protestors, and not even sparing those who were not involved in the protest. The police brutality included apart from violence inflicted on protestors, 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, the threats and intimidation of people picked up against speaking the truth about what happened to any authority or to the media, the communalised abuses against victims, custodial violence even on minors and firing and killing people without following the law, preventing medical personnel from treating the injured, and threatening the injured against accessing medical care,” said the jury.
“UP Police and State Administration have violated every principle enshrined in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. Every single agency and mechanism that could have come to the rescue of children failed to do its duty. It also reveals that even the best of laws cannot fulfil its purpose if the executive machinery does not wish to see it being implemented well and judiciously. Police has been arbitrarily issuing notices to people for recovery of costs of damage to public property allegedly caused by them without specifying any details. Obviously, this cannot be done without establishing the culpability of the person in a court of law. These are intimidatory and illegal tactics being employed by the police. In fact, there is considerable evidence to show that the police itself indulged in destruction of private property of innocent people,” the jury observed.
People’s Tribunal was jointly organised by Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform (CJAR), Anhad, Not in My Name Campaign, National Alliance for People’s Movement (NAPM), MKSS, NCPRI, NFIW and Karwan-E-Mohabbat.
The tribunal witnessed testimonies from various human rights activists who were themselves victims of such brutality like Lucknow-based senior lawyer and president of human rights group Rihai Manch Sadaf Jafar, Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey, retired IPS officer SR Darapuri, theatre actor and poet Deepak Kabir and Adv. Akram Akhtar Choudry who works primarily in Muzaffarnagar.
Earlier, Karwan e Mohabbat fact-finding team had visited families of the dead in Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Sambhal and Firozabad. All of the 16 killed in Western UP are young men from Muslim working-class families. Almost all their families said that they were not part of the procession; they were at the wrong place at wrong time. They died of bullet injuries. Of the 16, for which we have information, 14 of them were hit above waist – on chest, face, head and neck.
In Meerut, Mohsin, 28, shot in the chest; Zaheer, 40, bullet went through one of his eyes; Aleem, 23, shot in the head; Asif, 20, bullet hit his chest; Aasif, 33, a bullet landed on his back. In Sambhal, Bilal, 31, shot under the lower lip; Shehroze 19, shot in the stomach. In Muzaffarnagar, Noora 25, hit on chest. In Ferozabad, Mukeem, 19, daily wage earner, hit in the stomach; Rashid, 27, bullet hit on head; Armaan, 24, a daily-wage worker, shot in the chest; Haroon, a poor man, hit in the jaw; Shafiq, 39/40, a daily-wage worker, hit near the ear. Some of these men died on the spot, others while being shifted from one to another hospital.
The team also visited homes which were ransacked and destroyed beyond repairs. In Muzaffarnagar, in house after house we visited in the two Muslim localities which were attacked by police on the night of December 20, – there was a pattern in destruction – the police had attacked only the most affluent houses, in each of the 4 houses we visited, everything that could be broken was thoroughly destroyed.
Family jewellery was looted, and cash stolen from two houses. The completely shattered members of families who visibly bore the signs of traumata and deep distress told us that the attacking police told them that they will live in their houses now as Muslims will have to leave. The police had interpreted the citizenship law as giving them licence to force Muslims to Pakistan. The attacks were led by local police, in some places joined by plainclothes miscreants. This is a new trend where the police are not a silent spectator in attacks but turns into a marauding mob. We saw police broken batons in two houses and a police cap left behind. People have not filed any FIRs for their loss.
The fact-finding team also observed the level of torture in the four towns in police custody was extremely high. Police did not even spare the children – in Muzaffarnagar police arrested 40 minors from an orphanage madrasa and beat the children. The Maulana of the madrasa was beaten so badly that his legs and limbs were broken. Police stripped the minors inside the police station and they received injuries on their back. In Sambhal, one young person, X – name changed – was brutally beaten and tortured by the police only because they found out that he was a Jamia student. The police beat him brutally in the custody and stripped him naked and beat him with belts and batons.
During the tour, the team heard in several places that police encouraged, persuaded and in a few cases even compelled the Hindu mob to burn and loot Muslim shops and houses and instead of controlling violence, police invited more violence. In Firozabad, police chased the protesters into Hindu dominant mohalla and said to Hindu onlookers, Hum Hindu hain, tum bhi Hindu ho, maro! [We’re Hindu, you too are Hindu, thrash them!] This is when a cancer patient who was there to fill his prescription was caught by a mob and brutally beaten and his leg broken.
They also heard saying: “Ye to Miyan bhaiyon ko humare Hindu bhaiyon ne muh laga rakha hai, warna inki auqat nahi hai ki ye kuch bolen” [Our brothers have kept these Mian (Muslims), otherwise they do not have the right to say something]. Further, the police said, “Humen to abhi do ghante diye hai, agar do din de den to inhe bata de ki hum kaun hai” [We have been given two hours now, if we are given two days, then we’ll tell them who we are]. In Sambhal, the locals told that they have an audio recording of the District Magistrate of Sambhal asking some Hindu journalists why they were helping the Jihadis.