UP assesses damages, to issue recovery notices soon

NEW DELHI: The Yogi Adityanath government is moving ahead, citing a Supreme Court order, to deliver on the Chief Minister’s promise of avenging the loss to public property by seizing assets of the CAA-NRC protestors in Uttar Pradesh.

UP’s Principal Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi told ET that collectors of all violence-affected districts, like Lucknow, Meerut and Muzzafarnagar, will start by Tuesday the process of assessing the damage to property and issue notices to the perpetrators asking them to make good the loss. The collectors will form committees to prepare inventory of all property damaged during the protests, like buses, vehicles and government buildings. “The SC had last year in October issued strict guidelines to this effect. We are following them,” Awasthi told ET.

SC on October 2 last year asked states to impose “exemplary fines” on those who damage public property and said conditional bail be granted to them only after they deposit an amount equal to the quantified loss. This could mean that the 925 persons arrested so far for the violent protests nay not get bail easily in UP till they pay up for the loss.

Another 5,558 persons have also been bound down under CRPC for the protests. The properties of all such accused may be seized, attached and auctioned later if the accused do not pay up for the loss.

Posters of absconders have been put up in various towns like Meerut, Muzzafarnagar and Gorakhpur, declaring a reward on them, based on images seen on CCTVs and video footage shot by the police. UP DGP O.P. Singh also issued instructions on Monday that impartial probe be carried out in the cases related to the violence and no innocent person be harassed. But UP government is also planning serious action against them as well as their ‘masterminds’ as the SC guideline says that if protesters vandalise property, their leaders must present themselves for questioning at a police station within 24 hours or they will be proceeded against by police as absconders first and suspects later.