Actor-activist Sadaf Jafar and former IPS officer SR Darapuri, arrested in connection with anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh, were released from jail on Tuesday.
A Lucknow court had on Saturday granted bail to Jafar, Darapuri and 13 others arrested in connection with anti-CAA protests in Lucknow.
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Jafar was arrested while she was doing a Facebook Live during the protests in Lucknow. After her release, she told NDTV that the police had behaved like “goons” during her detention.
“I was called a Pakistani because of my name and I was beaten up. The bike of one of the female cops was burnt during the protests. She said she would avenge it... then she clawed my face,” Jafar recalled.
Jafar told the news channel that she was abused by the inspector general, who also asked a female cop to hit her. “But he was not satisfied... he pulled my hair and then kicked me in stomach. None of the cops were wearing badges,” she said.
Jafar told The Hindu that she pitied how “rattled and scared” the Yogi Adityanath government was. “I was initially angry but I feel like laughing looking at the Sections (of the IPC) they slapped on a woman when I was peacefully protesting,” she said.
Darapuri who had been under house arrest said he was “ashamed of the Lucknow police’s conduct.”
“When I asked for a blanket at the police station or for some food, I was denied both,” he told NDTV. Darapuri was initially detained at the Hazratganj thana.
“The government was rattled by the manner in which the entire country opposed the law and adopted a tactic of suppression. They sent political and social activists to jail with the strategy that it would leave protesters outside without anyone to guide them. But the government has failed in it,” he told The Hindu.
Soon after their release, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attacked the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh and said “lies can never win.“
Congress Lucknow president Mukesh Singh Chauhan told PTI that both of them walked out of jail at about 10 am.
Soon after their release, Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi, “Ambedkarite thinker and former IPS SR Darapuri and Congress leader Sadaf Jafar released from jail today. When court had asked for proof, the state police appeared clueless. BJP showed its real ideology by arresting innocents and those taking forward the legacy of Baba Saheb Ambedkar”.
On December 28, Priyanka Gandhi had said she was manhandled by police personnel when she tried to resist their attempts to stop her from visiting the Lucknow residence of Darapuri. Later, the Congress leader met the family of Jafar and said that activist had been arrested on “baseless” charges by the police.