Police break up women’s protest in Varanasi, 6 held

SSP (Varanasi) Prabhakar Chaudhary said the protest was “funded” by the Congress and Left parties and those taking part in it were “paid to protest”. He also said the protesters threw stones at police when they reached the spot to disperse the crowd. He said the protest was in violation of prohibitory orders in the district.

“The women who tried to start the dharna were residents of the area and some of them were identified as members of the Congress and Left parties. We will take action against those responsible,” the SSP told The Indian Express.

“Prima-facie, we have found that the men there were paid to stage the protest and they have been arrested. One of them belongs to Mau (district). When police tried to disperse the crowd, some protesters threw stones, after which mild force was used,” the SSP added.

A woman, identified as Srishty Kashyap, who was taking part in the protest and claims to be a member of the Congress, had live-streamed a video on Facebook in which she claimed that the protest at Beniyabagh was peaceful and still police forced them to leave the ground.

“Today, we sat on a dharna at Beniyabagh ground and it was a peaceful sit-in by women. The protest was against CAA-NRC and there were no miscreants… the administration is saying the protest was sponsored and funded from outside. If we are standing with the truth, then you call us rioters. There is an FIR against me. What did we do to deserve such an action?” Kashyap is seen saying in the video. She, however, could not be reached for comment.

Circle officer of Dashashwamedh Ghat area, Preeti Tripathi, said that an FIR has been registered at Chowk Police Station against 30 named people and around 600 unidentified people. They have been booked for rioting, voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty, assault or criminal, criminal conspiracy among others. “Six persons have been arrested. So far, we have identified 24 persons who were part of the protest that turned violent. Their photographs are being released,” the CO said.

With this, a total of seven FIRs have been registered in the state in the last 10 days in connection with the protests by women against CAA-NRC at many places.

Three FIRs have been filed against protesters at Lucknow’s Ghantaghar sit-in, one for the Gomtinagar protest in Lucknow, one in Etawah, and one at Khuldabad police station in Prayagraj.