Anti-CAA protestors
Human Rights Defenders
Uttar Pradesh

HRDA has issued an urgent appeal to the National Human Rights Commission of India on February 10, 2020 regarding the brutal lathi-charge on and ill-treatment of participants in a peaceful protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. Participants in the protest included women and citizens from varied social backgrounds and civil society groups.
On February 5, 2020, police personnel present at the site of the sit-in protest at Maulana Jauhar Ali Park, Bilariagaj, Azamgarh district brutally lathi-charged unarmed protesters, injuring many women seriously. They also used teargas shells to disperse the crowd, forcibly removed protesters from the site, and arrested many of the protestors.

Police registered an FIR under Sections 147 (rioting), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 124-A (sedition), 504 (insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 307 (attempt to murder), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC); under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and under Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (CLA) at the Bilariyaganj police station for allegedly using foul language against Hindus and Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. The FIR was against 135 people, of whom 35 were named and the rest were unidentified; 20 of the 35 named have already been arrested, and another 100 participants in the protest fear being arrested for expressing dissent.