BSP chief Mayawati tears into UP govt over arrest of CAA protesters

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Sunday accused the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led state government of putting anti-CAA stir protesters behind the bars without thorough investigation and demanded financial assistance to those killed in a protest.

"In Uttar Pradesh, especially in Bijnor, Sambhal, Muzzafarnagar, Meerut, Firozabad and other districts, innocent people have been sent to jail for protesting against the CAA/NRC without an investigation. This issue has also been raised by the media and is very shameful and condemnable," the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister stated in a tweet.

Mayawati also demanded the immediate release of the innocent people and urged the state government to "provide justifiable financial assistance to the kin of those who have died during the protests."

She also asked the Uttar Pradesh government to seek an apology from the public for the same.

The four-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister also informed that on Monday (January 6), her party will send a letter to the Governor seeking a judicial inquiry into the entire episode.

"A delegation would give the letter of our demands to the Governor at Raj Bhavan on January 6 at 11 am," she said in another tweet.

A total of 1,246 people have been arrested in connection with the violence which erupted across the state in the wake of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), police had said on December 27.

Earlier in December, protests had erupted in several parts of the country including Uttar Pradesh over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.