During her meeting with the family members of the deceased and victims of the violence during the protest against the CAA in Muzzaffarnagar and Meerut, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi accused the police of targeting the innocent.

Priyanka Gandhi arrived in Muzaffarnagar on Saturday morning and went to meet Maulana Asad who runs Madarsa Hoz-e-Ilmia near Meenakshi Chowk where the violence broke out on December 20 during the protest against CAA. Priyanka also visited the house of Noor Mohd who lost his life during the protest and met Rukaiya whose house was allegedly damaged by the cops in the violence and the gifts bought by her family for her wedding were broken.

Later, in her statement to the media, Priyanka accused the police of thrashing the victims badly for none of their fault. Police entered madarsa, manhandled the maulana and students and booked many students including minors. Few of them have been released while others are still in jail.

On her meeting with the family members of deceased Noor Mohd, Priyanka said that what the family went through is horrifying. Noor Mohd is survived by a seven months pregnant wife and a year-and-a-half old daughter. She also met young girl Rukaiya whose marriage was to take place on Saturday. “Cops vandalized her house and damaged the gifts procured for her marriage,” she said adding that other victims also narrated their ordeals of police brutality.

She said that she and Congress party are committed to stand by the victims and their families and will reach out to those who are victims of injustice. She also told that she has given a memorandum to the Governor of Uttar Pradesh in this regard in which she has mentioned about the high handedness of the state police.

On her way back to Delhi, Priyanka also met the families of the deceased on the outskirts of the city and assured them of every possible help. Earlier, Priyanka and Rahul were denied permission to enter the city and meet the family members of the deceased by the police.

District administration again denied her permission to visit victims’ families in the city in wake of the imposition of section 144 in the district. While returning to Delhi after meeting the victims in Muzaffarnagar, Priyanka Gandhi stopped at a colony situated on Meerut bypass where her party officials had brought the kin of all 5 persons who had died during the anti-CAA protest on December 20.

City Congress president Zahid Ansari told that she spent over 30 minutes with the kin of the victims who narrated the tales of their ordeal and police atrocities.

They told Priyanka that the police neither is providing postmortem reports nor registering their FIRs. Congress leader Manoj Tyagi said that deceased Saleem’s brother told her that cops arrived at his home two days ago and threatened them against filing any case. Saleem was one of the five persons who died of bullet injuries during the protest.