As the police had named around a dozen women anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters in Lucknow and registered three criminal cases against them, including daughters of poet Munawwar Rana -Sumaiya Rana and Fauzia Rana, on Monday night , he has now accused Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, of violating prohibitory orders.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday held a rally in Lucknow called the ‘Jan Jagran Abhiyan’ on CAA, an initiative by the party to counter opposition’s remarks on the Act which they allege to be anti-Muslim.
Yesterday, he launched an attack on the opposition parties on the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and made a claim on the Act not to be unconstitutional, he said, “The government is not going back on CAA. Those who want to protest may continue doing so.”
The well known Urdu poet asked,”My daughters Sumaiya and Fauzia have been booked for violating prohibitory orders but what about Amit Shah who addressed a rally of thousands in the state capital on Tuesday? Surely there were more than four people in the rally. How can there be two sets of the same law for different people?”
In reply the BJP spokesman Chandra Mohan argued that permission for the rally had been duly taken but the poet asked if permission be granted to violate a law.
Ajay Kumar Lallu, Uttar Pradesh Congress president came out in support of Rana and said, “Why is Section 144 not for the Union Home Minister? Common people are being picked up for violating prohibitory orders but when it comes to the ruling BJP, the administration happily gives them permission to violated a law.”
The protesters, mostly women, had been booked for “rioting, unlawful assembly, disobedience to order and obstruction in public way”.
In three separate FIRs lodged late on Monday night at the Thakurganj police station, around 150 people, including 130 unidentified, were booked under Sections 147(rioting), 145 (joining or continuing in unlawful assembly knowing it has been commanded to disperse), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 283 (danger or obstruction in public way) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The District Magistrate of the state capital Abhishek Prakash, when asked, said that permission for the rally had been duly granted. Requisite permission had also been taken from departments like the municipal corporation, public works department (PWD) and police. He was evasive when asked about prohibitory orders, he added.
Munawwar Rana, however, demanded to know when a case be registered against Home Minister Amit Shah who violated the same orders?
He said that the case action against his daughters and others protesting against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) would be ‘injustice’ if Shah’s rally was termed “legal”.
“This is like putting the children of fakirs, who live on alms, behind bars when a ‘shah’ (king) comes to the city. I have told my daughters not to get scared by the registration of a case. Maximum punishment will be a jail term or death,” said the poet.
The ongoing protest against CAA in Lucknow, on the lines of New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh protest, has gathered momentum and despite efforts by the police, the women have refused to budge from the site.
The women, most of them elderly, have claimed that the policemen snatched their blankets and poured water on the bonfire that they lit to keep themselves warm.
Rejecting the claims, the police in a tweet said, “During the illegal protest going on at Lucknow’s Ghantaghar Park (Clock Tower), some people tried to make a ‘gheraa’ (cordon) using ropes and sticks, and also tried to put sheets. They were not allowed to do so. Some organisations were distributing blankets in park premises. As a result of which, people living in the vicinity, who are not part of the protests, were coming to take the blankets.”
“Police removed those persons and organisations distributing blankets there, and action is being initiated against them,” the Lucknow police said while urging the people to not spread rumours.
In visuals captured on mobile phones, policemen were seen taking away blankets and boxes of what appeared to be food packets from the protest site on Saturday night amidst chaos.
The cops, some of them wearing helmets, were also seen taking away Styrofoam sheets meant to be spread on the ground for those who were to spend the night there.
About 50 women began the sit-in demonstration on Friday but the crowds swelled on Saturday and the protest became ‘indefinite’. Women, children and senior citizens joined the protest and several organisations also came out in their support.
Large gatherings are banned in Lucknow after the police imposed prohibitory orders late on Saturday night.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed in Lucknow in view of Republic Day and the Defence Expo and most importantly, the ongoing protests against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Meanwhile, UP State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (UPSCPCR) has sent a letter to the UP DGP O P Singh, saying that the presence of children at the protest site was a violation of their rights and action against the parents should be taken without delay.
Zoya Hasan, a housewife who is protest with her two children, aged 6 and 8, reacted strongly to the UPSCPCR letter and said, “Let them come and ask my children if they have been forced by us to stay here. I have been asking them to go home but they refuse to do so. Do you think any parent will subject their children to torture? Let them put all of us in jail but we will not budge an inch from here.”