The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) will probe cases of violence during the recent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state.

Director General of Police (DGP) OP Singh has ordered the SIT probe.

The DGP said that the SIT, in each district, will be headed by an officer of an Additional SP rank. The SIT will be headed by Additional SP (Crime) or Additional SP (City) of the district.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested and 5,558 kept in preventive detention following violence related to anti-CAA protests in the past one week.

At least 124 people have been arrested in the last one week for posting “inciting content” on social media.

“124 people arrested for posting inciting content on social media. 93 FIRs registered. Action was taken on 19,409 social media posts. Out of these, 9,372 Twitter posts, 9,856 Facebook posts, and 181 YouTube profiles have been reported,” NDTV quoted a statement from Uttar Pradesh Police as saying.

The violence that broke out in many parts of the state between December 19 and 21 has claimed as many as 21 lives.

Meerut witnessed some of the worst incidents of violence during protests against the amended citizenship law and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Around six people were killed in protests.

The Uttar Pradesh Police has only accepted that firing took place in Bijnor. But video clips that have surfaced suggest firing took place at many places in the state.

Although many of the bodies of those killed in violence bore gunshot wounds, the state police insisted that they did not shoot anything other than plastic pellets and rubber bullets.

In an attempt to justify its action, the state police has released a series of photographs and videos showing two men firing at cops during protests against the controversial law.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma claimed that the police had also suffered heavy losses and 288 policemen were injured in violence that erupted across 21 districts.

During raids at various places, the police recovered 35 illegal weapons which were used during the riots to fire at the police.

The police have also reportedly recovered 500 cartridges of prohibited bores from places where violence broke out.