A team of human rights activists claim that Muslims in Muzaffarnagar area of Uttar Pradesh were dragged and their homes were vandalised during CAA stir. (Photo: PTI)

A team of human rights activists has accused the Uttar Pradesh Police of targetting Muslims in the aftermath of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that took place in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. A civilian fact-finding team, which includes prominent human rights activists like John Dayal, Kavita Krishnan and Harsh Mander, has claimed to have proof that violence during the agitation was incited by the state police and that the Muslims in the area were tortured.

A number of videos and pictures shared in a series of tweets and Facebook posts by the activists purportedly show Muslims being targetted by the Uttar Pradesh Police during the protest over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). IndiaToday.in wasn't able to independently verify the videos. The UP Police has not commented on the claims yet.

In one of the tweets, Kavita Krishnan accused the UP Police, the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) of acting as "rioters" in uniform. She posted videos that shows ransacked homes of several Muslims in the region and claimed that the UP Police "targeted and trashed their homes".



She said the "RAF was also involved in this destruction of Muslim homes singled out for being prosperous." The police, PAC and RAF, while doing their "jobs", were shouting: "Muslims will be thrown out of India. Don't damage the floor or walls. After all, all this will one day belong to us," she claimed.

Another tweet shows pictures of broken washbasins and vandalized scooter allegedly belonging to a Muslim family.

Describing the alleged atrocities, Krishnan claimed that a man was dragged, arrested and then forced to accept that he possessed guns.

The activist said that a teenage boy was detained and tortured for two days. A young girl's head was brutally injured when she tried to protect her uncle, she added.

'POLICE BARGED IN'

John Dayal and Kavita Krishnan further said that the UP Police, under the pretext of carrying out flag march, broke anything and everything while barging into the houses belonging to many Muslims. "Not a single plate or cup or shelf has been left whole. There was only a woman with three children at night when the forces stormed in," Krishnan said.

Krishnan even claimed that some men in plainclothes possessed sharp weapons and vandalised a hostel first set up in 1929. CCTV cameras were smashed and their records were stolen by the "marauding" police, she claimed.

Look at these images. Not a single plate or cup or shelf has been left whole. Each & every thing has been broken, under pretext of a "flag march" by PAC, RAF, police. In this home, there was only a woman with 3 children at night when the forces stormed in & trashed it. pic.twitter.com/oJWCD5oac4 Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) December 28, 2019



It is alleged that many children and the school's principal were hiding inside the Begum Naushaba Complex of Shia educational institutions when the police broke open the gates and assaulted them.

There were several other schools and hostel which were allegedly attacked by the police. The floor of Saadat hostel and school still had bloodstains, according to the activists.

In the school/hostel offices, a broken almirah, the lock of which reads (My India is great), piles of glass, smashed printer & picture frames. The Saadat hostel here is a a quiet green place where Hindus join Muslim friends for "group study" pic.twitter.com/WIHgYYtGOc Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) December 28, 2019



"GO TO PAKISTAN, MEN IN UNIFORM TOLD THE OLD MEN WITH BEARDS"

John Dayal quoted another victim Hamid Hasan who said when the police announced the flag march, the streetlights were switched off. "The police were in numbers, in perhaps 40 vehicles."

"They smashed Muslim shops before entering Hamid Hasan's house. They were brutal. They were abusive. They were relentless. "Go to Pakistan", the men in uniform told the old men with beards," John Dayal alleged.

Another account involves the story of Mohd Intessar who lives in Jaswantpuri, Muzaffarnagar, UP. Intessar is a big farmer, a social worker and a community leader. He was not home when over 40 policemen raided his house, upturned and smashed his two cars, and destroyed everything they could.

Dayal narrated an account of a postgraduate who "lies in a shattered room of her grandfather Hamid Hasan's house in Jaswantpuri, Barafkhana in Muzaffarnagar."

"Her forehead is bandaged, covering a deep gash caused by a steel rod. In the next bed is her 14-year-old brother, his eyes still terrified, his body bruised. Both were beaten up by the police on 20 December 2019," Dayal wrote.

"The 72-year-old man, the richest Muslim on the street with a lumber sawmill, several shops and land in his native village, alleges every assailant was a policeman, all in uniform," he said.

'NOT A SINGLE HINDU WAS ATTACKED'

Kavita Krishnan claimed that "not a single Hindu person, or shop, or home has been torched or attacked or harmed".

"Instead all we saw were "wanted" notices of poor Muslim boys and men, with rewards announced for information about them or for their capture! And police have themselves acted as the biggest rioters, biggest," she tweeted.

Note that not a single Hindu person, or shop, or home has been torched or attacked or harmed. Some stone pelting by protestors - maybe. But the police has NOT acted against actual communal rioters who told Muslim shop owners "Katuey, Pakistan jao" (circumcised fellows, go to Pak) pic.twitter.com/qcIpPfgOQY Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) December 28, 2019



Slamming Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the human activists posted a picture of Adityanth's tweet where he is condemning the "rioters" and saying that they will pay the price of the loss done during protests.

Making a scathing attack on Yogi Adityanath, the activist said: "...Read this tweet by the UP CM, triumphantly gloating that he is great because "rioters" are demoralised, weeping, will have to pay, have been put in their place etc. @UPPolice force is a mob, its leader is @myogiadityanath @myogioffice."

She even juxtaposed the Nazi regime in Germany to the BJP rule in India and said: "That's what Nazis and paramilitary did to German Jews in 1938. Next step was the concentration camps."

'BJP-MEN BEHIND VIOLENCE'

Krishnan also alleged that some men, affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led mobs that torched vehicles and vandalised shops at Meenakshi Chowk.

She said that the shop owners filed complaints naming a BJP man by the alias "Bobby", but the Uttar Pradesh Police told them that no named FIRs were accepted. "You can get compensation but don't try to get the communal rioters punished, they told the complainants," she claimed.

There are several other homes ransacked in the same way by police. Also, in the presence of @UPPolice, BJP men led mobs which torched, vandalised Muslims' shops at Meenakshi Chowk, Dena Bank building, cars belonging to ex MP Syeduzzama. Photos appeared in papers. pic.twitter.com/HpHA8AwlxI Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) December 28, 2019