Voter suppression in UP? Police flash pistol, locals allege Muslims barred from voting

“You cannot vote. Muslims will not vote.” 

Tayyaba, 55, claims this is what local police told her when they stopped her from voting in the November 20 by-polls for Meerapur assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar. 

A viral video of the incident that followed in Kakrauli village showed Kakrauli station house officer Rajeev Sharma in uniform, threatening and aiming a pistol at the woman going to the polling booth. 

Tayyaba, identified as the woman in the video, told Newslaundry that police personnel surrounded her and some other women and snatched their voter slips. When she insisted on voting, one of the officers picked up a brick, threatened to hit her, and ordered them to go back. She said an argument ensued and subsequently, Sharma pointed a pistol at her. 

Sharma confirmed to Newslaundry that he drew his weapon and pointed it at Tayyaba. 

The by-polls for nine assembly seats in UP – Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Khair, Mirapur, Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, and Kundarki – were allegedly marred by several such incidents, with their pictures and videos being widely circulated on social media. Locals claimed that police outside some polling booths identified Muslim voters and didn’t allow them to cast their vote. 

Following complaints, the state’s chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa ordered the suspension of five police officials – two each from Muzaffarnagar and Kanpur and one officer from Moradabad. 

Police pointed pistol, ‘children pelted stones’

Tayyaba told Newslaundry that SHO Sharma was at the scene and “got angry after I said that you are not allowing Muslims to vote. He then pointed a pistol at us. He said, ‘Either I will shoot you or you run away from here.’” 

She said she remained firm and replied, “If you have the courage, shoot. Your uniform will be removed. You have no orders to shoot.” 

After Sharma drew his weapon, some children accompanying the women “pelted stones on the police”, Tayyaba said. “The police then ran away. Our people did it out of compulsion. After some time, the policemen returned in large numbers and lathicharged the villagers. Some sustained injuries.”

Did Muslims cast votes in Kakrauli village? 

Of the 12,000 people in Kakrauli village, about 150 km from Delhi, about 75 percent are Muslim voters and 25 percent are Hindu. The polling was held at the three locations in the village, with the most ruckus reported at the polling booth in Kisan Inter College.

The main contest was between Mithilesh Pal, fielded by BJP-ally Rashtriya Lok Dal, and Sumbul Rana, a Samajwadi Party leader and INDIA bloc candidate. The Bahujan Samaj Party had fielded Shahnazar, and the Azad Samaj Party’s candidate was Zahid Hussain. 

The seat was vacated by RLD MLA Chandan Chauhan after he won the Lok Sabha polls from Bijnor. 

A local, Mohammad Kallu, 63, claimed that “not even 10 percent of Muslims in Kakrauli village could cast their vote”. “The situation remained tense here and in the surrounding villages since 7.30 am. This has happened for the first time that the administration did something like this here.”

Another local, Musharraf Hussain, told Newslaundry, “Everything was going well, but as Muslims came out of their homes to vote, the police targeted those with beards and caps and lathicharged them. They were sent back home without casting their votes. There is still a lot of police in the village. The atmosphere here is tense.”

Kakrauli resident Shahzad Hasan claimed, “Just like it happened earlier in Rampur and Sambhal, the same has happened here. Muslims have been targeted and stopped from voting. My younger brother is handicapped, and even he wasn’t spared. The police beat him.” He claimed that when one of his brothers told the police that they would vote for RLD, “the police didn’t say anything to him”. 

Tayyaba also claimed that many locals were not allowed to cast their votes. “A large number of policemen were roaming outside our houses, banging on doors, abusing. Whoever was found outside was beaten by policemen. My brother-in-law Abdullah was also beaten. He sustained injuries. Many others were also injured. There are more than 200 voters among our relatives, of which no one was able to vote.” 

She added that she had seen nothing like this in the 35 years she’s lived in Kakrauli. 

Her husband, Abdul Samad, 57, claimed, “When we went to cast our vote, the police outside the polling booth chased us away. As we asked them the reason, they lathicharged us. When we tried to talk to the media about this, showing our injuries, another group of police lathicharged us. People then ran away. No one was allowed to cast their vote at the booth.”

Police says ‘took action to control local feud’, unrelated to polls  

Speaking to Newslaundry, SHO Rajesh Sharma said that “two parties had blocked the road” and they were trying to remove them from the spot and “restore law and order”.  “As we tried to remove them from the road, they started fighting. Then they started pelting stones at us. My colleague and I even got injured.”

On whether he brandished a pistol at the women, Sharma replied, “Yes.”

Asked about why the Muslim women were being stopped from casting their votes, Sharma said, “All this is incorrect. This happened one kilometre away from the polling booth. This incident took place on a road near their house.”

Sharma further said that action has been taken against those who pelted stones. “About 20-25 people have been named in the FIR, while it also mentions many other unidentified persons.” He said no orders had been issued by the police department against the personnel.

Muzaffarnagar SSP Abhishek Singh defended the police action and blamed “controversy” in an interview with PTI. He said that the viral video “shows the station in charge of Kakrauli doing riot control. This video is half, and it is being made viral as part of a conspiracy. The complete truth is that there was a report in Kakrauli town that there was a clash between two parties. When the police reached the spot, people there tried to block the road, and then when the police removed them, they pelted stones.” 

Singh said that the police controlled the situation by using mild force. “FIR will be registered against those who pelted stones, and strict legal action will be taken.”

Newslaundry had earlier reported a similar incident involving the local police of Sambhal and Rampur seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Watch the ground report and read here.

Small teams can do great things. All it takes is a subscription. Subscribe now and power Newslaundry’s work.