Like in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, several videos of policemen indulging in vandalism and caning young boys, allegedly for participating in anti- Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and anti-National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests, have emerged from Bihar’s Aurangabad district, too. Earlier, on December 31, the dead body of a young Muslim boy, who too had participated in anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests, was found from the minority-dominated Phulwarisharief area of Patna.
In one video circulated on social media, policemen wearing helmets could be seen wielding batons on the windscreen of a van and a car parked in a desolate street while, in another video, policemen are seen getting hold of a young boy and caning him brutally.
In a third video, a group of Muslim women, young and old, are seen alleging that policemen had barged into their homes and abused them. “The policemen said tumko azadi chahiye na…dete hain tumko azadi (you want freedom…let us give you freedom),” a young girl student is heard saying in one of the videos.
Opposition visit
A local Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former minister Suresh Paswan is also seen in the video meeting with the frightened women. “Yes, I along with other party leaders had gone there to meet them on December 22…Justice must be done for these terrified women and people against whom police had resorted to brutalities,” Mr. Paswan told The Hindu over phone.
Local sources in Aurangabad told The Hindu that the incident took place after the RJD’s bandh call on December 21 in protest against the CAA and NRC. The police had resorted to baton charge allegedly after stone-pelting incidents in which at least seven people received serious injuries and were admitted to local hospitals.
“Later, the police ran amok in the Muslim-dominated areas of Shahganj and Quereshi mohalla of the town, and vandalised vehicles and barged into their homes,” a local journalist told The Hindu . More than 50 people were named in a First Information Report and several mobile phones were seized from them, he added.
‘Only lathi charge’
In one of the videos that went viral on social media, a youth identifying himself as Iltav Quereshi claimed he was the owner of the van vandalised by the policemen. However, a local police official, who was not willing to reveal his name, said, “We too have heard that such videos have gone viral on social media but nothing of that sort [police violence] happened…the police merely resorted to lathi charge after stones were pelted on them.”
Earlier, on December 31, 2019, the decomposed dead body of a young boy, Amir Hanjla, 18, was found in a bushy water pit in the communally sensitive area of Phulwarisharief in Patna. Hanjla had gone missing on December 21, when he had participated in an anti-CAA-NRC protest called by the RJD. The post-mortem revealed stab wounds and injuries inflicted by blunt instruments on his body. Hanjla — a Matriculate-pass and the fourth among seven siblings — was working in a local bag-stitching unit but since it had closed on that day due to bandh, he had gone to participate in the protest.
“He was killed for holding the tri-colour in his hands,” Sohail Ahmed, his sexagenarian father, told journalists. Later, he refused to hold any demonstration with his son’s body as it would have escalated communal tensions in the area.
12 named
Phulwarisharief Police Inspector Mohd. Shafiq-ur-Rehman said as many as 12 persons had been named in the case, and four of them had already been arrested. Some of those arrested, allegedly, are members of two fringe Hindutva groups. “The rest, too, will be arrested soon,” Mr. Rehman said.
Locals, however, accused a senior police official posted in the area for the delay in taking action against those involved in attacking pro-CAA-NRC protesters, and later, for labelling Amir Hanjla as a “mentally disturbed” person.
The RJD has formed a five-member fact-finding team to visit Phulwarisharief and enquire into Hanjla’s death.
