Out of all the three deceased victims Najma Bano was the lone woman to have sought legal redressal from the Allahabad High Court for her son’s killing. “Shaheed ho gaya mera beta”, she told as she described her 23 year old son’s murder. In the afternoon of 20th December 1/1
two of her sons including Aftab stepped out for namaz. She remarks that Aftab even told her, “Ammi, juloos mein nahi jaayenge, (mahaul) bahut kharab hai”.1/2
It was sometime then as Aftab headed back from the mosque toward his home at Babupurwa, that police firing hit and shot him fatally. Najma said her own son indicted the police before he breathed his last. “Mere bachhe ne khud hi bataya ki police waale ne goli maara hai. 1/3
Her son was in the hospital when he told her this, and she went on to stress that the doctor at Hospital shooed the rest of the family out of the ward. “No one in the hospital spoke to us properly or informed us properly. He was shot twice, two bullets not one. 1/4
11 year old Saghir Ahmed died during the brutal lathicharge in Varanasi . His father told us “Uski body par koi nishan nahi mili, aisa lag raha hai ki woh dab gaya bheed mein”, his father Wakil Ahmed said. He added that they still haven’t received the post-mortem, saying “2/1
He was playing outside until 4 pm, and then after coming home to keep his cycle, he went out again and we didn’t even realise it …. He could not even have known what was happening, how could a little kid have known?” 2/2
In Varanasi, we found that police had arrested 69-70 activists many of whom were surprisingly from middle-class and non-Muslims backgrounds.
Among the arrested and now released,we met Ravi & Ekta Shekhar, climate change activists who were parents of a breast-fed infant child,2/3
both of whom were in custody for close to 2 weeks. Along with them Sanya , Manish Sharma , Dhananjay suggu and others was also arrested. Up police also picked up passers-by who were found near the protest but never proven to be a part of it.2/4
One such person, Akbar Khan, had gone down to drink chai while his wife had just given birth in a nearby hospital, but he was nevertheless picked up and arrested along with the 69 protesters.
In Lucknow we witnessed that the police actions were the most brutal after kanpur.Some of the High profile people faced the brutal actions of police in lucknow.
S.R. Darapuri (former IAS officer ),
@sadafjafar(Social activist ), Advocate Mohammad Shoaib (Lawyer) 3/1
Dipak Kabir (social activist). There were allegations on police persons in Hazaratganj police station in Lucknow of beated
@sadafjafar with a baton on her legs and hands and later on was kicked by a male police officer in her abdomen and left bleeding . 3/2
Police personnels were repeatedly calling her pakistani and said “Tum log khaate yahaan ka ho aur gaate pakistan ka ho”.
Dipak Kabir who just went to see sadaf jafar in Police station was arrested by Police & was repeatedly called “ Urban Naxal “&brutally beaten up in the PS .3/3
@srdarapuri , retired IAS from Uttar Pradesh was kept in House arrest by police from 19th Dec. 2019 and later on was denied food for more than 24 hours in police detention and was not given blankets in jail .
Four people were shot during the protest among which one of the person Mohammed Wakeel died .
In Mau, Shukrana Parveen,wife of one of the arrested person said “The police lied to us by barging late at night into our home&saying we are only taking you for questioning as you may be of assistance to our investigation.But my husband & 3 other men from our family are still 4/1
in jail . They also came in around 3 am but recorded the time of arrest as being in the afternoon!”
Out of the 20 charges in various FIRs registered in Mau,some of them included charges of attempt to murder on injured protesters itself 4/2
In Mau, we saw UP Police’s hoardings in the market square featuring images of 110 Muslim men and a request to the public-at-large to provide further information about these men.4/3
Families of some of the men in those images said that the police has picked up photos from private social media accounts of local Muslims & used these as images of “Wanted” protesters!
Even after one year of the crackdown UP police continues with the witch hunt of anti-caa protestors.
Most recently Manish Sharma is continoulsy being haunted by Police in varanasi.
Sadaf jafar is still facing consequences & in mau many protestors were recently slapped with NSA .
