On 12 December 2019, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 – rightly referred to as India’s Nuremberg Law – was passed, leading to widespread protests across the country. Millions of Indian citizens are protesting against this fundamentally discriminatory law and many, including students, have been met with severe repression and criminalization at the hands of the Police, particularly in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

The brutality of State violence is most visible in the abuse of 41 minors, who have been detained and subjected to custodial torture, criminalization and post custodial coercion in UP. The report Brutalizing Innocence jointly produced by Quill Foundation, Citizens Against Hate and HAQ: Centre for Child Rights documents the police action against minors, the methods and patterns of violence inflicted, the various violations of national and international laws and the inaction of human rights institutions. Based on fact-finding missions conducted across various districts in UP between 10 and 24 January, along with verified media accounts, this report records the testimonies of minor victims, witnesses, police officials and photographic evidence of the abuses as well as cases police FIR.

The following are testimonies of torture are excerpted from the report: Brutalising Innocence, accompanied by Illustrations by Arundhati Prasad.

This is part of the series at documents the ongoing State violence in Uttar Pradesh.

Pattern of Violence As per the findings of the report, 22 minors were detained and tortured in Bijnor and 14 minors in Muzaffarnagar. FIRs were filed against four minors who were released after 12 days of detention. Two minors continue to be held under detention in Firozabad and have not received any legal aid nor have their cases received any media coverage. Two minors sustained bullet injuries in Lucknow, another eight-year-old was killed during a stampede as a result of police use of excessive force against anti-CAA protests in Varanasi. The boy’s parents were forced to conduct a high-security burial one hour after the body was returned. The report further states that all detained minors testified that they were beaten with police batons/lathis and made to witness violence inflicted by police on detained adults. Tortured children returned home with bruised body parts and fractures. In Bijnor, where night-time temperatures dropped to 6 degree Celsius, police made no heating or sleeping arrangements. Children were not allowed to sleep and if they did, they were beaten. During detention, minors were denied basic rights like access to drinking water and food. Instead, they were beaten or rebuked for asking for water or using the toilet. In Muzaffarnagar, all of the detained minors were Muslims and were fasting (roza) on the day of detention, as it was Friday. Police denied them water, to break their fast and were verbally abused, as were their religious figures. Also, the verbal abuse used by the police was xenophobic in nature. Many children said that they were forced to chant Hindu slogans like Jai Shri Ram. Moreover, only after their guardians were coerced into signing affidavits testifying that there had been no ill-treatment or torture at the hands of the police. The report shows that in most cases, UP police physically and emotionally threatened minors not to attend any more protests and stated this as a reason for detention. In an attempt to intimidate and induce fear within the citizenry, UP police have publicly displayed posters with mugshots of protesters, including minors. This has caused fear and paranoia among families, who have chosen to send their children away from the villages. *** Torture Testimonies

Physical violence Five minors who were released in Nagina area of Bijnor testified that, from the time they were picked up to when they were released, they were beaten every two-three hours. In Muzaffarnagar too, despite the denial of UP police, all the released students said that they had been subjected to beatings by police batons and lathis in the jail. A 15-year-old, physically challenged, minor was also detained and beaten up in Muzaffarnagariii said: “I kept telling them that I am physically challenged. But they wouldn’t listen. They put me in a police van and started beating me up non- stop.” Suleiman said, sitting in the district hospital to change the bandages on his fractured hand. (Bijnor) 17-year-old Y, also from Nagina, was kept in detention for two days and subjected to torture. Y was scared to speak up and merely said that: “Mostly they beat us on the lower parts of our body. I was not able to walk properly for 15 days. The police detained me on Friday and released on Sunday night. Till then I was in custody where they beat me brutally.” (Bijnor) Recalling what her son shared with her after he returned, Y’s mother expressed her anguish as follows: “At last, Y came home after two days with his toes crushed and bruises on his body. He was barely walking and his lower part of the body had turned blue due to beatings by the police…. They were given severe beatings during their period of detention. They were first taken to Bijnor Police Lines and then shifted to a farmhouse owned by a BJP MLA. During their illegal detention, Y and others were beaten up mercilessly by the local police officials and were not even given blankets in the spine-chilling cold winter night…. It was the most shocking thing to hear the account of those two days from Y”. (Bijnor)

Also listen: Patterns of violence, impunity and silence, conversation with Bharti Ali and Nidhi Suresh