Protesters clash with police in several districts, 50 cops hurt; mobile internet, SMS remain suspended in parts of State
Six people were killed in firing in Uttar Pradesh as protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) spread across the State on Friday. Several other parts of the country also saw massive protest. The protesters indulged in stone pelting and arson and went on the rampage in Ferozabad, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Hapur, Bhadohi, Meerut.
Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Awanish Awasthi, confirmed to a news agency that five people died on Friday in the violence during protest against CAA. Director General of Police OP Singh told PTI that two people lost their lives in Bijnor and one each in Meerut, Sambhal and Firozabad. But officials reported a death in Kanpur as well. He said over 50 policemen were seriously injured.
Demonstrations were organised in Gorakhpur — the bastion of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday. Protesters hurled stones at police in two places. The police retaliated by firing teargas shells in Khoonipur area to disperse them.
Tension prevailed in Ghantaghar, Shahmaroof, Nakhas, Khoonipur and Ismailpur areas of Gorakhpur as people came out of mosques in large numbers and demonstrated. In Aligarh, where a red alert was sounded by the administration in view of continued protests, the Friday prayers passed off peacefully. Peace calls were given from mosques in Muslim-dominated areas this morning. Shahar Mufti Khalid Hamed urged people not to attach importance to rumours.
Similar protests were also reported from Bijnor, Bahraich, Farrukhabad and some other parts of the State. Internet services remained suspended in about a dozen districts including Aligarh, Mau, Azamgarh, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Sambhal and Allahabad.
Lucknow which witnessed violent clashes over the CAA on Thursday remained calm on Friday. Security was beefed up in the State capital after Thursday’s violence and heavy deployment of police forces was made to avert any exigency.
Meanwhile mobile internet and text messaging services of all telecom operators remained suspended in Lucknow and some parts of the State on Friday. In Sambhal, Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rehman Burq and several others protestors were booked.
In Meerut, after being chased away by the police, the protesters gathered on rooftops and hurled stones in Titanga crossing area of Nauchandi on Friday evening. Some of the miscreants fired gunshots in which two protestors on another roof sustained grievous injuries and later succumbed in a hospital.
In Ferozabad, CAA protesters emerged from Jama Masjid after Friday prayers, torched several vehicles and Nalband police outpost. and later pelted stones at police personnel in the city area. The mob burnt furniture of Nalband police outpost and torched police vehicles. In the police firing, one of the protesters died while one constable was also critically injured.
In Bijnore, clashes took place in several places, including Meenakshi Chowk, where one person was killed in firing. In Muzaffarnagar also, violent clash took place in which one protester died of bullet injury. In Khatauli area of Muzaffarnagar, the police charged protesters near Balakram when they violated section 144 and raised slogans against the CAA. In Bhadohi too, protesters hurled stones and torched vehicles in some areas when they were stopped from taking out a rally.
In Saharanpur too, thousands of protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers and raised slogans against the Government. In Deoband, protesters demonstrated peacefully after the namaz. Similarly in Kanpur, protests were witnessed in Nadesar area where the people in large numbers took to the streets to raise their voice against CAA.
In Hapur, the police cane charged a mob when they were trying to bring out a march after namaz.
In Varanasi, two protesters were injured when a wall fell on them during a protest while in Jaunpur, protesters raised slogans against the Government. Sporadic violence was also reported from other parts , Maharashtra and Karnataka-Kerala border areas as well, while authorities resorted to curbs on mobile internet and SMS services in various regions. Additional security forces were deployed in all sensitive areas, including those where large-scale protests took place on Thursday that also saw at least three deaths including of two persons in police firing in Mangaluru. One person had died in Lucknow.
Holding a protest march in Maharashtra, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) alleged the Narendra Modi Government wants to ensure only Hindus remain in India with its twin move of the new CAA and the proposed countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said the Modi Government has shown utter disregard for people’s voices and used brute force to suppress dissent. She said the CAA was discriminatory and the proposed NRC will particularly hurt poor and vulnerable.
A top official, however, said the government is ready to accept suggestions, if any, from the people who are staging protests and asserted that various efforts were being made to clear doubts of the people about the new law.
In Gujarat, a mob pelted stones at the police outside a mosque in communally sensitive Hathikhana area of Vadodara city, objecting to video-shooting of namaz congregation, which the officials said was being done as a preventive measure in the wake of anti-CAA protests. Three persons were arrested while a senior official was injured in stone-pelting, the police said.
In Maharashtra, mobs pelted stones at state transport buses in Beed, Nanded and Parbhani districts.
In Kerala, police kept high vigil in northern districts in the wake of the killing of two persons in Mangaluru in neighbouring Karnataka.
A series of protest marches and blocking of trains and buses took place in various parts of Kerala past midnight after the news emerged about the deaths.
Anti-CAA protesters also blocked Karnataka state transport buses in Kozhikode and raised slogans against the Mangaluru police action. The Kerala Road Transport Corporation has suspended bus services to Mangaluru. A large number of Congress workers blocked roads and burnt tyres in Kozhikode, while a group of activists also burnt an effigy of Home Minister Amit Shah.
Karnataka police, on the other hand, restricted entry to Mangaluru for those coming from Kerala. At least 50 men and women who had arrived by a train from Kerala were taken into custody for trying to enter the city without identity cards.
Some mediapersons were detained for entering the Government Wenlock hospital where the post-mortem of those killed in the police firing was underway. The journalists, who were from Kerala, were released later in the day.
Police sources said protesters defying prohibitory orders attempted to lay siege to a police station in Mangaluru and tried to attack police personnel, following which force was used to disperse them.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said he will talk to leaders of anti- citizenship law agitation and his government was committed to safeguard the rights and honour of the state’s indigenous population.