The SIT probing the anti-CAA violences in Uttar Pradesh has charged 33 arrested people for provoking children to pelt stones during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act last month. Uttar Pradesh was one of the worst-hit by the anti-CAA riots in which Muslim mobs ran amok damaging public property and injuring police personnel and innocent civilians. During the clashes, several minors were seen throwing stones at the policemen and vandalizing properties.
According to an official, an additional charge under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, has been imposed on 33 people who were arrested earlier for allegedly indulging in violence during the clashes that broke out on 20 December last month in Uttar Pradesh.
This section was added after receiving permission from Chief Judicial Magistrate Ravikant Yadav.
These 33 accused were found to have provoked minors to throw stones during the clashes with police, the official claimed, adding that all of them were earlier charged under various sections of the IPC.
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Incidentally, in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur district too kids as young as seven years old were part of the mob which pelted stones at the police during the anti-CAA riots last month. The SP had then revealed that kids and teenagers between the age of 7 to 15 years who had no idea regarding CAA or NRC pelted stones at policemen and damaged police vehicles.
Meanwhile, a senior lawyer Chandraveer Singh informed that the sections of the Juvenile Act, 2015 were invoked as there were no such provision in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to book people for such offences.
Violent incidents of stone-pelting, vandalism, and arson had been reported from Bulandshahr, Muzaffarpur, Kanpur, Hamirpur, Firozabad, Hapur, Bahraich and several other places in Uttar Pradesh on December 20.
Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar had also taken a violent turn as protesters set vehicles on fire. Following the violent protests, the Uttar Pradesh police had registered cases against several accused persons.
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As many as 47 cases were registered at Nagar Kotwali and Civil Lines police stations, in which more than 250 people were named. Police have arrested more 80 people so far in the matter.
Condemning the violence and protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in parts of Uttar Pradesh and parts of the country, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had said that people cannot indulge in violence in the “name of protests”. The UP CM had assured that strict actions will be taken against hoodlums who have been trying to create unrest in his state and various parts of the country.
Merely a few days after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced tough measures to combat the anti-CAA rioters and promised to seize the property of every rioter and use its funds to repair the damaged public property, the Uttar Pradesh administration had sealed 50 shops belonging to rioters in Muzaffarnagar who caused damage to public property. The sealed shops are all in the trouble-hit Minakshi Chowk and Kachchi Sadak areas of the town.