LUCKNOW: Visuals captured on mobile phones at the Clock Tower in Lucknow shows policemen taking away blankets and boxes of what appeared to be food packets from the protest site on Saturday night amidst the chaos.
The cops, some of them wearing helmets, were also seen taking away Styrofoam sheets meant to be spread on the ground for those who were to spend the night there.
A video shot on Saturday night, also showed a woman protester running after some cops as she yells at them and asks, “Why are you taking the blankets?”
However, the police denied the allegations but admitted that the “blankets were seized after due process.”
Dismissing the allegations in a statement, Lucknow police on Sunday said, “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.”
About 50 women began the sit-in demonstration against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on Friday but the crowds swelled on Saturday and the protest became ”indefinite”
Women, children, and senior citizens joined the protest and several organisations also came out in their support.
Large gatherings are banned in Lucknow after the police imposed prohibitory orders late on Saturday night.
Protests broke out in different parts of the country against and in support of CAA which excluding Muslims, grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.