Tale spin and terror

Though courts are finding gaps in the police’s narrative of “violence”, the fear of brutality might put an end to open protests in Uttar Pradesh

- PUJA AWASTHI

There is a castle of cards crumbling in Uttar Pradesh. And it is the courts that are kicking that castle built around the arrest of “violent” anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protestors in Lucknow. As bail is being granted to those accused by the police under sections 147, 148, 149, 152, 307, 323, 504, 506, 332, 353, 188, 435, 436, 120B and 427 of the Indian Penal Code and for destruction of public property under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, the police’s version of events is crumbling.

Yet as Sarwan Ram Darapuri, a 77-year-old retired IPS officer who was arrested despite being under house arrest, says, “There is little hope of any further open protests in the state. The government has terrorised people by issuing recovery notices. While the discontent against the state government shall remain, people will be scared to display it openly.”