Anti-CAA Protests: UP Police Says Blankets 'Seized In Due Process'

Dismissing allegations that they took away blankets and food of the anti-CAA protesters at the Clock Tower in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh police said that 'blankets were seized after due process.' "At the clock tower in Lucknow, during an illegal protest, some people tried to pitch a tent and they were denied permission. Some groups were distributing blankets in the park and many people, who were not even a part of the protest, came to take the blankets. We had to disperse the crowd from there. The blankets were seized after due process. Please do not spread rumours," Lucknow police said in a statement. 

“Police removed those persons and organisations distributing blankets there, and action is being initiated against them,” the Lucknow Police said, and urged people not to spread rumours.

Lucknow’s Police Commissioner Sujeet Pandey also dismissed the allegations levelled by the protestors.

The indefinite protest by women at the national capital’s Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship Amendment Act and NRC has been going on for over a month now.

On the lines of Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, around 50 women along with children have been squatting near the Clock Tower in Lucknow’s old quarters protesting the CAA and NRC. The women protestors alleged that blankets provided to them by some organisations were taken away by police.

Besides Delhi, protests have unfolded in several parts of the country over the contentious law since it was passed on December 11 and have led to clashes at several places including Uttar Pradesh.

According to the amended law, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 and facing religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship. The law excludes Muslims.