UP announces cash reward for arrest of absconding anti-CAA, NRC protesters

The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday declared 14 anti-citizenship law and National register of Citizens protesters as absconders and announced cash rewards for their arrest.

Eight of these protesters were declared wanted under Gangster Act and notices were pasted outside their houses.

The accused were charged with arson, spreading communal disharmony and causing damage to public properties during the anti-CAA, NRC protest in Lucknow that turned violent. The accused included Shia cleric Maulana Saif Abbas.

The administration also pasted pictures of the accused at many places across the old city area and near Imambara.

More than 40 people, including social workers and a retired IPS officer, were arrested following the violent protests in Lucknow in December last year in which one person was killed.

The new citizenship law amends the Citizenship Act, 1955, to make people from Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Parsi faiths who entered India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for citizenship.

In Assam, many groups feel that the amended citizenship law will nullify the 1985 Assam Accord, which fixed March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for deportation of all illegal immigrants irrespective of religion. Activists say that the NRC process was aimed against all illegal immigrants and the citizenship law will selectively benefit non-Muslim migrants into Assam.