A tribunal in Uttar Pradesh has ordered 86 persons to pay a total fine of Rs 4,27,439 for having damaged public property during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in 2019, ANI reported on Saturday.
The order was passed by the Uttar Pradesh Public and Private Property Damage Recovery Claims Tribunal in Meerut, according to Amroha District Magistrate BK Tripathi. This was the first such order passed under the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Act, 2020, according to The Times of India.
A copy of the order was sent to the Amroha district magistrate, and the official was directed to proceed with the recovery.
The police said that on December 20, 2019, a mob pelted stones and engaged in arson during a demonstration against the Act. Some of them allegedly broke the police’s riot control equipment and set several police vehicles ablaze.
However, Mohammed Javed, who was among those directed to pay the fine, claimed that the police framed innocent persons without evidence. “The truth will come out if proper investigation is carried out,” he said, according to The Times of India. “Everything is being done arbitrarily. We will appeal before a higher court.”
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act provides citizenship to refugees from six non-Muslim religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014.
However, critics fear that the Citizenship Amendment Act, clubbed with the National Register of Citizens, will be misused to target Muslims in the country.
The National Register of Citizens is meant to be a list of legal Indian citizens. It was compiled after two draft versions and excluded 19 lakh applicants when it was published in Assam in August 2019.
In Uttar Pradesh, at least 16 persons were killed in clashes between the police and protestors in December 2019. Fourteen of them died due to firearm injuries, according to The Indian Express.
The police had, however, claimed that they did not fire even a single bullet at protestors.
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