Aligarh Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ashish Kulhari on Tuesday defended the police action on the Aligarh Muslim University's students protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, saying that the forces deployed there used non-lethal weapon as the part of self-defence only after "aggressive" students resorted to violence and "deliberately" pelted stone.
"We have said from the starting that the AMU students were aggressive. They turned the situation unusual. They deliberately pelted stone on police forces. Police then used the non-lethal weapon as part of self-defense and to disperse the protestors by using the minimum force," Kulhari told ANI.
Since the enactment of the CAA, which grant citizenship to non-Muslim minorities including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, protests have erupted in various parts of the country including the national capital.
On December 15, clashes broke out between the police and students protesting against the Act. The police fired tear gas shells outside the AMU after protestors pelted stone at them.
Citing the CCTV footage of the incident that took place on December 15 when students got engaged in clashes with the police, Kulhari said, "CCTV footage that surfaced reveals the truth. You might have seen in footage that protestors tried to break the Baba Syed Gate of the university and pelted stone on us. The matter police acted in self-defence, says Aligarh SSP on action on AMU students SSP defends police action on AMU students, says acted in self-defence is under sub judice."
In the CCTV footage of the incident accessed by ANI, protestors could be seen running toward the gate and tried to break it. The police had barricaded the gate and tried to stop the protestors from breaking it. Some could be also been pelting stone on the police personnel.
The AMU has been shut down till January 5, 2020, in the wake of the protest.