Our Job Is Like That Of A Surgeon's, Says UP Police To Foreign Media

Protesters hold placards while protesting against the citizenship law in Mumbai

When Sadaf Jafar headed out with hundreds of others last Thursday to join a protest against the contentious new citizenship law, she told her children she would be home that evening. She never made it back.

The 43-year-old actor and activist had been live-streaming video from the protest site, a bustling crossroads in Lucknow, on her Facebook page. But as the rally descended into chaos and Ms Jafar pleaded with police to detain the violent protesters, officers instead grabbed her, the video shows before ending abruptly.

Perturbed by Ms Jafar's disappearance, a family friend and fellow actor, Deepak Kabir, went to a police station to inquire about her whereabouts. But he also did not return. Both are now in jail and under investigation for attempted murder and assaulting public servants, according to police documents reviewed by The Post. Two other prominent activists, SR Darapuri and Mohammad Shoaib, both in their 70s, were detained before the protest and are also in jail.

They are among 5,500 people seized by police in Uttar Pradesh alone in recent weeks in an intensifying clampdown on dissent. Twenty-four people have been killed in protests across India, 19 of them in Uttar Pradesh. Police deny accusations that they fired on protesters, detained people arbitrarily, ransacked homes and beat women and children. On Friday, authorities shut down the Internet in nearly one-quarter of the state. Human Rights Watch said police used "deadly force" against protesters.

"It's been harrowing," said Ms Jafar's sister, Naheed Verma. "It's clear that we're heading towards a police state." P.V. Rama Shastri, a senior police official, said it would be inappropriate to comment on Ms Jafar's case because the matter was before the courts.

The turmoil stems from the government's approval this month of a law that makes religion a criterion for nationality, a step critics and protesters say undermines India's founding secular ethos and moves the country closer to becoming a Hindu nation under Narendra Modi.

The law creates an expedited path to citizenship for immigrants from three countries but excludes Muslims - the key point of contention in a nation whose 200 million Muslims account for almost one-sixth of the population. Narendra Modi defended the law, saying his government had never discriminated on the basis of religion.

The targeting of activists who have spoken out against the measure is intended to "send a chilling message to everyone," said Yogendra Yadav, an activist and political scientist. "If they [Jafar and Kabir] can be picked up, is anyone safe?" Ms Jafar, a single mother of two, had recently finished work on a film directed by the internationally acclaimed director Mira Nair.

Since PM Modi's resounding reelection in May, his second term has been marked by a focus on long-standing demands of Hindu nationalists, which opponents say is a distraction from an economic slowdown and the highest unemployment in decades. In August, the government revoked the autonomy and statehood of India's only Muslim-majority state - Jammu and Kashmir - and implemented a crackdown. Last month, the Supreme Court allowed a Ram temple to be built at the site of a 16th-century mosque that Hindu extremists, led by senior figures in PM Modi's party, razed illegally in the 1990s.

Uttar Pradesh is one of the poorest states and home to big numbers of Hindus and Muslims. Ruled by PM Modi's BJP, its chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, is a firebrand Hindu monk who has previously called on his followers to kill Muslims and declared that the state would exact revenge on violent protesters.

While people from all faiths have participated in this month's demonstrations, critics say Muslims have been especially targeted by the state's police, raising concerns about religious profiling. Nearly all who have died or detained are Muslims. A fact-finding team of activists that visited the state accused police of a "reign of terror" and "brazenly targeting" Muslims and activists.

In UP's Bijnor, two people died of bullet wounds during recent protests. There is widespread fear and shock among Muslim residents, many of whom have fled town.

Arshad Hussain, 46, a tailor, said his son, Anas, stepped out to buy milk when a bullet hit him in the eye, barely 30 yards from his house. "Everyone standing around said he was hit by police firing," said Mr Hussain. "He has a seven-month-old son. His wife is devastated."

Local police superintendent Sanjeev Tyagi said there was no order to open fire at the crowd and denied that Anas was killed by police. He acknowledged, however, that a 20-year-old student from the locality was killed when a constable fired in self-defense.

In the same neighborhood, Mohammad Imran watched from a neighbour's terrace as a dozen policemen barged into his house. "I was so scared that I couldn't dare to do anything," he said, describing how the officers beat his 62-year-old, paralysed father and dragged him away. "I learned yesterday that he [father] was sent to jail."

Mr Tyagi denied that police were carrying out arbitrary arrests. "Police's job is like a surgeon and if there is a problem, we have to do a surgery to solve the problem," he said.

In Lucknow, the police face allegations of vandalism and beating women and children.

On the afternoon of December 19, Tabassum Raza, 26, heard loud noises in the narrow lane outside her house in the Hussainabad neighbourhood. She peeped through the metal door and saw dozens of policemen chasing young men. Within minutes, officers were inside her modest home, having broken in through a wooden window that hangs limp from its frame.

"It was mayhem," she said. "Someone threw down the fridge, another snatched my phone. They were lashing their sticks, sparing nothing and no one."

Ms Raza has purple bruises on her right arm and both thighs from the beating. Her sister-in-law, Shahana Parveen, 29, lowers her pants to show dark bruises on her right hip. Her 10-year-old nephew was left with a black bruise at the back of his knee.

The policemen, she said, repeatedly asked them to give names of the men of their house. She said they pleaded with them but the "rampage" went on for nearly 40 minutes. A video shot by her cousin after the police left shows a trashed room with belongings strewn across the floor.

Mr Shastri, the state police official, said that there was a process for public grievances and if anyone complained to the police, the law would be followed. "On the basis of the account of an accused or their kin, it may not be fair to come to any conclusion," he said.

The anger and division sweeping the country has spilled into unlikely places. At a local court in Lucknow on December 20, several lawyers assaulted nine detained protesters as they were brought into the chamber, local media reported.

Navigating the corridors of another ramshackle court building, Ms Verma, Sadaf Jafar's sister, said her arrest had left the family traumatized. A lower court rejected Ms Jafar's bail application, meaning she must spend at least another week behind bars before the court reopens in the new year.

"The highhandedness of the police and disregard for civil rights is appalling," she said. "We have protested under multiple governments but never faced this."

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The Washington Post's Tania Dutta in New Delhi and Asad Rizvi in Lucknow contributed to this report.