Activists and political analysts slam the ‘draconian’ force
Nawaid Anjum | India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI: The decision of the UP government to constitute Uttar Pradesh Special Security Force (UPSSF), which will have powers to search and arrest anyone without any warrant, has triggered a storm among activists, political analysts and social workers.
Social activist and human rights campaigner Shabnam Hashmi said that the move of the UP government is aimed at curbing dissent and an exercise in further strengthening the state and making it “authoritarian”.
“Nothing surprises me anymore. We are living in a semi-fascist state. Just like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, National Security Act (NSA) and other such laws, this will be used to ensure people are traumatised and fearful of the state machinery,” she said, adding that all the recent decisions of the UP government, as well as of the Centre, have been part of an effort to destroy the “basic character of the Constitution”.
“The UP government’s decision to constitute such a force, aimed at curbing dissent in the state, has surpassed all constitutional propriety. There is no doubt that it will be used against not just Muslims, but all minorities, including Dalits and Christians,” said Navaid Hamid, president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM), the umbrella body of over a dozen leading Muslim organisations in the country. Hamid added that the greatest tragedy in the country, as well as in UP, was that there was no visible opposition. There are people trying to resist, but the fact that there is no vibrant opposition to confront the fascists, has made things worse, he added.
Terming the decision of the UP government as “unwarranted and undemocratic”, Nishant Verma, well-known political analyst, said that such decisions are part of a larger conspiracy of the right-wing forces to convert a democracy into dictatorship. “They are using the loopholes of the Constitution to further their agenda of hate,” he said, adding that the force will be used to settle political vendetta in the state.
The human rights activists are worried because the new force being set up under the Uttar Pradesh Special Security Force (UPSSF) Act, 2020, will not require magistrate’s order or warrants to make an arrest or conduct searches. Even the courts, under the UPSSF Act, cannot take cognisance against the force without any approval from the government.
The new force will be responsible for security of vital government and private buildings, and industrial establishments on the pattern of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi, briefing mediapersons in Lucknow on Sunday, said the special force will be constituted on the basis of the orders of the Allahabad High Court, which had expressed its displeasure over the security at civil courts last December. Awasthi has directed the Director-General of Police to prepare a road map in the next three days.
Awasthi said, “The basis of this force is an order of the High Court, which had ordered that there should be a specialised force for civil courts. In all, there will be 9,919 personnel in the force,” he added.
On December 18, 2019, the Allahabad High Court had pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government over a shootout at the Bijnor chief judicial magistrate, a day after three assailants had opened fire in the court, killing a murder accused and injuring three others — two policemen and a court employee. A similar incident had occurred in the Muzaffarnagar court in 2015, when an armed man entered the courtroom masquerading as a lawyer and shot dead Vicky Tyagi, an alleged gangster. Chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Bar Council, Darvesh Kumari Yadav, 36, was shot dead by a colleague in her chamber on the civil court premises in Agra on June 13, 2019. A two-judge HC bench had said that most incompetent police personnel are being posted at the courts, adding that it will seek the deployment of central forces if the state government is not up to the task.
