AMU Anti-CAA Protest: Video Footage Shows Students Broke The Gate, Not Police

The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday (24 December) released a video of what they said refute claims that they were the ones who broke the gate of Aligarh Muslim University during protests by varsity students against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on 15 December.

“A reaffirmation of our earlier stand that the AMU gate was not broken down by any security agency,” the UP police said in a tweet on Tuesday (24 December).

Earlier, reports in a section of the media cited some ‘fact-finding reports’ to say that the police broke the Bab-e-Syed gate at AMU.

The footage, recorded on the CCTV installed at the university gate, shows violent student protesters thumping against the doors, as well as police barricades on the evening of 15 December. Despite best efforts of the police to contain the agitating students inside the campus, the group is finally seen breaking the gate in the video.

According to a Times Now report, the police said they exercised utmost restraint and entered the campus only after the administration requested them to take charge of the situation.

“The CCTV footage clearly shows that students were bent upon creating ruckus while it were the police who made maximum efforts to prevent breakage of Bab-e-Syed Gate,” a senior police official was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying.