The Yogi Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, November 5, declared 14 anti-CAA, anti-NRC protesters as ‘absconders’ and announced cash rewards for their arrest, in a fresh attempt to nab those who opposed the new citizenship law in 2019.
Earlier, eight of these 14 protesters were declared ‘wanted’ under the Gangster Act.
The state government officials also put up notices outside their residences and accused all 14 of arson, spreading communal disharmony and causing damage to public properties during the demonstrations in Lucknow.
Meanwhile, posters with images of 12 people who allegedly participated in the protest against the citizenship law last year have been put up again in Lucknow’s Hazratganj.
Earlier, the state administration had installed hoardings with images, names and addresses of those accused of destruction during protests in December last year. Political activist Sadaf Jafar retired IPS officer SR Darapuri, Shia cleric Maulana Saif Abbas, activist and poet Deepak Kabir and human rights defender Mohammed Shoaib were among those who were named.
The hoardings also specified the amount to be paid for the damage caused within a given time by the people if they did not want their assets to be confiscated. However, they were taken down after the Allahabad high court on March 9 ordered the Lucknow administration to remove them.
Later, the Supreme Court told the UP government that there was no law that could support their action of putting up the names of protesters in public.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.
