UP Police put up photos of CAA protesters on hoardings

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, March 6

In a bizarre move, the Lucknow Police have put up hoardings carrying addresses of the 28 people, accused of damaging property during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests in the city in December last. It has triggered outrage among those being “named and shamed.”

The hoardings that came up overnight in the city ask the accused to pay Rs 64 lakh or have their property seized. A government spokesman said the posters were installed on the CM’s directive at important intersections, including the main crossing in the busy Hazratganj area and in front of the Assembly building. The spokesman said the people on the posters were those who had damaged public property under the pretext of protests, and notices had already been issued seeking compensation from them.

Describing it as a mockery of law, retired IPS officer SR Darapuri, whose name figures among the accused, asked, “How can the police put up such hoardings merely on the basis of their own reports? Has any court of law held us guilty? The police action amounts to defamation and violates our right to privacy.”

Darapuri said none of those who figure in the hoarding has been served personal notices in this regard.

According to the Lucknow District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash, around 100 such hoardings are to be put up across the city.

Activist-politician Sadaf Jafar, one of them, said, “We are not absconding. Legal issues cannot be brought into public like this. Now it is difficult to move out of the house to even buy bread. When the court has put a stay on my arrest and the kurki (seizure) of my property, how proper is it to put up such hoardings?”

Darapuri has written to the UP DGP, Lucknow DM and Commissioner of Police demanding the immediate removal of the hoardings.

Darapuri said that they plan to take legal action.

However, the high court has gone on a week-long Holi vacation and no vacation Bench has been constituted.

Ban on 2 channels

New Delhi: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry on Friday suspended the broadcast of two Kerala-based news channels (Media One and Asianet News TV) for 48 hours over their coverage of the violence in northeast Delhi, saying such reportage could enhance communal disharmony. They were earlier issued a show-cause notice and after they filed their replies, the ministry found them to be in violation of the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. The ministry ordered prohibitionfor 48 hours. pti

(With inputs from PTI)