Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Sunday accused the Yogi Adityanath government of putting anti-CAA stir protesters behind the bars without thorough investigation and demanded financial assistance to those killed in the protests.
“In Uttar Pradesh, especially in Bijnor, Sambhal, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Firozabad and other districts, innocent people have been sent to jail for protesting against the CAA/NRC without an investigation. This issue has also been raised by the media and is very shameful and condemnable,” the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh said in a tweet.
Mayawati demanded immediate release of the innocent people and asked the state government to “provide justifiable financial assistance to the kin of those who have died during the protests”.
She also asked the Uttar Pradesh government to seek an apology from the public for putting anti-citizenship law protesters behind bars without thorough investigation.
Mayawati said that on Monday, her party would send a letter to UP Governor Anandiben Patel, seeking a judicial inquiry into the entire episode.
“A delegation will give the letter of our demands to the Governor at Raj Bhawan on January 6 at 11 am,” she said in another tweet.
As many as 1,246 people have been arrested in connection with the violence which erupted across the state during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the UP Police had disclosed on December 27.
Anti-CAA protests were witnessed in several parts of the country, including UP, in December.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 provides for granting citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, and Christians who fled Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh due to religious persecution and came to India on or before December 31, 2014.