HC to UP govt: Give details on detention of lawyer.

Source – hindustantimes.com

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has directed the state government to file an affidavit on the issue of alleged unlawful detention of an advocate, Mohd Shoaib, for involvement in the protest against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The court also directed that right of visitation to family members/lawyer of Shoaib shall be made available by jail authorities and other police authorities as per law.

The bench comprising justice DK Upadhyaya and justice Ranjan Roy passed the order in petition filed by Shoaib, who is a lawyer and has filed the writ petition through his lawyer friend, Gaurav Kumar Kashyap.

Counsel appearing for the petitioner had stated that in the intervening night of December 19/20, 2019 certain police personnel took the petitioner out of his house and since then his whereabouts are not known.

Additional government advocate (AGA) of state government stated that petitioner was arrested at 08.45 am on December 20 from Clarks Avadh Tiraha, Lucknow, as he was wanted in connection with an FIR registered on December 19 for rioting and causing damage to public property. The FIR was registered at Aminabad police station of Lucknow.

Petitioner’s counsel refuted the claim and argued that petitioner did not participate in any protest and was arrested from his house.

Earlier, on December 18, an order was passed by police prohibiting Shoaib from organising or participating in any agitation or procession which may violate Section 144 of the CrPC which was promulgated in Lucknow.

The court has fixed January 2 as next date of hearing when the state government will file affidavit stating details regarding arrest of petitioner along with documents related to it.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested and 5,558 kept in preventive detention following violence related to anti-CAA protests in the past one week. The police has put the death toll in clashes across the state at 19.