The Allahabad HC on Monday directed the Chief Secretary Govt. of Uttar Pradesh to provide suitable compensation to 6 students who were grievously injured by the U.P. Police’s brutal and inhumane action upon the protesting students of Aligarh Muslim University on December 14 and 15, 2019.

The Court has acted promptly and so has the NHRC in conducting an enquiry and ordering relief, what has gone missing however, is accountability and punitive action against the erring personnel and those giving them orders.

The NHRC was directed by the HC on January 7, 2020, to initiate an inquiry into the matter. While the bench comprising Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Vivek Varma observed that the NHRC was not a party to the writ petition filed by Adv. Mohd. Aman Khan(a practicing advocate of Allahabad HC and a former student of AMU ), it opined that it was best for the NHRC to look into the matter since it was already inquiring into a similar matter concerning excesses of Delhi Police upon the protesting students of Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi.

In pursuance of the directions given by the HC on January 7, 2020, an inquiry was conducted by a six members team of National Human Rights Commission. The report submitted by the team has been accepted by the Commission. A copy of the report along with order of proceedings was sent to the HC by the Registrar (Law) of the National Human Rights Commission.

The Bench accepted the recommendations of NHRC in toto and ordered compliance reports to be filed by the next hearing fixed on March 25, 2020.

The recommendations made by the Commission are as under:

“Upon consideration of the facts discussed above, the Hon’ble Commission may be recommended to consider the following:

1. Directing the Chief Secretary Govt. of Uttar Pradesh to provide suitable compensation to the six students who have been grievously injured commensurate with their injuries, on humanitarian grounds.

2. Directing the DGP-Uttar Pradesh to identify the policemen (both district police and PAC), as seen in CCTV footages involved in stray incidents of damaging motorcycles and unnecessarily caning the apprehended students which has no bearing on the task of controlling law and order. A suitable action may also be taken against them as per rules and provisions that exist for subordinate officers in UP Police. The police force should be sensitized and special training modules be carried out to inculcate professionalism in handling such situations.

3. Similar directions as in point (b) above may also be given to the Director General, CRPF for RAF. RAF being a specialized force primarily set up to deal with riots and handle law and order situations, should show utmost professionalism in such crisis situations while at the same time, respecting the human rights of civilians also.

4. Directing DGP of UP, to ensure that the SIT set up vide his order dated 06/01/2020 investigates all the related cases on merits and in a time bound manner. The Hon’ble court may also like to set the time limit and periodic review, if any, for the completion of investigations on time.

5. The DGP UP and Senior Officers are also advised to improve and set up a robust intelligence gathering system. Special steps may be taken to counter rumour mongering and circulation of distorted and false news especially on the social media. This is to better control such law and order incidents which occur spontaneously and unexpectedly.

6. To direct the AMU-Vice Chancellor, Registrar and other authorities to establish a mechanism of better communication with the students’ fraternity so that they are not influenced by outsiders and rusticated unruly students. They should take up all confidence building measures to rebuild the trust of students so that such incidents do not occur in future.”

The approach taken by the HC in the present case may provide namesake relief to the injured students, however, the need of the hour is policing the UP police and the State Government which ordered the Rapid Action Force to carry out what clearly appears to be a brutal lathi charge, rubber bullet and pellet firing upon the protesting students.

The contingent of police reportedly forcefully entered different parts of the Universityincluding library, hostels, classrooms, offices, etc. and brutally behavedwith students, consequent to that several students suffered serious injuries. The police officials reportedly, intentionally assaulted the students and alsovandalized the vehicles parked in the University campus near library. Thestudents in a big number were detained at different places by the Stateagencies and no medical aid was provided to them. The detained students were also alleged to be brutally tortured. On December 16, 2019, theRegistrar of the University issued notices to all the students to vacate thehostels though no reason was there to do so.

In its January 7, order, the HC observes that “Sri Colin Gonsalves, learned Senior Advocate while referring the observations made by the Supreme Court Extra Judicial ExecutionVictim Families Association and another Vs. Union of India and othersreported in 2017 (8) SCC 417 states that the inquiry or investigation bythe National Human Rights Commission is of civil nature and that too isnot an effective measure to bring the culprits of doing wrong to board.According to him, looking to the facts of the case, it would be appropriateto constitute a Special Investigating Team to investigate the entire matter.He has suggested names of three former Officer of Uttar Pradesh Police tobe nominated as member of the SIT.”

Even then, the HC preferred that an inquiry be done by the NHRC, which cannot initiate criminal action against the Police Personnel at fault. Also, the quantum of damages to be paid to the petitioner according to the NHRC recommendations to the HC are to be decided by the ‘Chief Secretary Govt. of Uttar Pradesh’. The rationale behind having the government itself decide the quantum of damages to be paid to those injured by its own doing seems unclear. Further, the compensation is to be paid on ‘humanitarian grounds’, which gives the impression of a charitable act on the side of the government, instead of being a punitive action for the offences unleashed by its officers.

Although the Court has accepted the recommendation of the NHRC to direct the DGP-Uttar Pradeshto constitute a Special Investigating Team to investigate the officers ‘involved in stray incidents of damaging motorcycles and unnecessarily caning the apprehended students which has no bearing on the task of controlling law and order’ and the same for the RAF as well, it would have been a welcome relief if the SIT could be constituted in a more independent method, and perhaps the names of former U.P. police officers recommended by Senior Counsel for the Petitioner could be considered for the same.

While 23 people in U.P. have died from bullet wounds at the hands of the UP Police, no personnel of the armed police has suffered any major injuries. This striking fact was put up by the Chief Justice to the Attorney General, when an argument was that the protesting students were violent and carried arms. The Police reportedly burned down a Hostel, thrashed over 100 students who sustained injuries, 3 of them are in critical condition, and 2 students had to have their arms amputated.

Independent fact finding reports on the incident prepared by NGO Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) and the jury of the People’s Tribunal on State Action in UP (Karwan e Mohabbat), ascertain that the police used rabid communal slurs against the protesters. The HRLN’s Report notes that “The entire incident is a shocking display of police brutality and impunity in the face of peaceful democratic protests by AMU students. The police actions seem not only brutal but also vindictive motivated by a desire to ‘show students their place’.

All witnesses we spoke to recalled the police was hurling insults and abuses of a rabidly communal nature at the students and the university at large. These communal abuses were being shouted even before they lathi-charged the protest, and only intensified as they moved further into the university, targeting individual students with their lathis, tear gas shells, rubber bullets and pellets.

At the first instance, it seems clear that the large scale violence carried out by the police and RAF forces was excessive, brutal and completely disproportionate to the stated objective of breaking up a protest. And the culpability for this large scale violence against peaceful students lies with the police and RAF as well as the university administration which allowed them in.”

The Court has acted promptly and so has the NHRC in conducting an enquiry and ordering relief, what has gone missing however, is accountability and punitive action against the erring personnel and those giving them orders.

The excesses of the UP Police and the Delhi Police against peaceful protesters and students should not be covered up in piece-meal relief orders of compensation. It is time that the Courts rap the knuckles of those in the Executive responsible for high handed actions upon the dissenting members of the public.

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Yet another young student, a Muslim is victim of police brutality following the anti-CAA and anti-NPR-NRC protests. PTI reported that doctors on Tuesday had to amputate the hand of a student of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) who suffered injuries during the clashes that erupted in the campus on Sunday. The students had been protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and in solidarity with the students of Jamia Millia Islamia who were baton-charged by police in Delhi earlier that day.

The AMU student was allegedly injured when the police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters.

Three other students suffered serious injuries during the incident. “One of them lost a finger because of a shell explosion and another has a head injury. We referred one student to Gangaram Hospital as he was unstable here. He was probably injured by a blunt object,” said Haris Manzoor Khan, the medical superintendent at the hospital of AMU’s medical college.

The situation in the city is normal and under control, said Aligarh SSP Akash Kulhary.

On December 15, around 70 people, including students, AMU security guards and 20 policemen were injured in the campus violence, PTI news agency reported. Several students told the media that, “the police came with the intent to assault and not to disperse”.

An engineering student, who was part of the protest, said that the students were leading a protest march in the campus to Bab-e-Syed, the university main gate, on Sunday evening.

“But the police started firing tear gas directly at students. They broke the main gate, barged in and started hitting students with batons. Later, they entered the Morrison hostel, even firing a tear gas shell into a room where three students were present,” said the student, requesting anonymity as he feared being targeted by the university authorities.

Another student from a neighbouring hostel said that the students in his building were so terrified that they switched off lights, locked the doors from inside and spent the night on the terrace.

Aligarh SSP Akash Kulhary denied these claims  however and catehorically stated that no security personnel entered the hostel. However, CCTV footage shows the Rapid Action Force personnel entering the Morrison hostel at 6:22 pm and pushing parked motorcycles to the ground. The police also picked up 27 persons who were released a day later – of them, only seven were university students.

The locals and university teachers had protested for their release. Furthermore, the Internet has been shut down in Aligarh since the intervening night of Sunday and Monday.

Activist Harsh Mander, who was part of a fact-finding team that visited the AMU on Tuesday, said the situation was disturbing and the police violence at the campus was worse than Jamia.

“I have never seen such levels of police brutality at a student protest. We met one student who was stripped naked and beaten brutally in police custody. There were belt marks over his body and one hand was broken. The police also used communal language with them,” said Mander, a former bureaucrat, who now works on mass violence, custodial justice and food security among other areas.

The students were also told to vacate the hostels overnight, which Mander said, caused huge trouble to them. “How do 13,000 students move in such a short time? How do they book tickets? The whole situation was very grim.”

A resident student of Women’s College said the wardens told them to vacate the hostels immediately at 11 am on Monday. “I did not know what to do. I called up my father in Kolkata who told me to leave the city immediately. A friend and I had to take a late-night train to Delhi. The next morning, I took an expensive flight to Kolkata,” said the student.

Faizul Hasan, former AMU students’ union president said some of the students were left stranded on the roads. “Despite repeated requests, the university authorities forcefully vacated the hostels. I don’t know what was the need to push the students into such a situation? And was it wise to even tell students from Kashmir and Assam to go back home?” said Hasan.

The worst part, he said, was the role of the university authorities who allowed the police to rampage in the campus and beat the students. “

Even in a meeting with the district officials, the mayor and other student leaders, Vice-Chancellor Tariq Mansoor said that if need be, he would call the police again and again in the campus,” Hasan said.

Mander, who met the university registrar Abdul Hamid, a serving IPS officer, said the latter was ‘upbeat’ about the decision to invite the police in the campus and defended it as ‘any policeman would’. Aligarh Muslim University public relations officer, Shafey Kidwai, however, said the outsiders in the protest gave it a violent turn, in the face of which the university authorities had to seek help from the police.

“We had said that about 75 per cent of them (protesters) were outsiders, who were hell-bent on creating trouble. Our stand was vindicated when it emerged that out of 27 students the police had picked up, 20 were outsiders,” said Kidwai, who is a professor of mass communication in the university.

The university also arranged and paid for the buses to ferry students to their hometowns within 350 km radius, he added. Some eight buses were arranged for Jammu as well.

Najmul Islam, the honorary secretary of AMU teachers’ association, too, condemned the police violence against students. “I don’t support acts of vandalism – most of which were done by the outsiders – but the situation could have been handled in a better manner. The police could have used water cannons to disperse the crowd. What was the need for firing a tear gas shell into a hostel room?” said Islam, a professor of biochemistry.

He, however, refrained from criticising the decision of the AMU authorities to allow police into the campus. “I am not saying whether it was right or wrong. We have asked for a judicial inquiry into the incident. It will find out the facts. But we must remain focused on our opposition to the CAA,” said Islam.

Aftab Alam, a professor of political science, said that Vice-Chancellor’s decision to allow police into the campus was “unfair”. “But when we went to express our disagreement with him, he insulted us and even indirectly threatened to suspend us,” said Alam, who is also a member of the university’s executive council.

Related:

1. Disproportionate and extraordinary use of force by police at AMU: Fact-finding team

2. Aftermath of clashes at AMU
   3. Massive Protests against CAB in Aligarh

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