The Knock at the Door Now Defines Life in Uttar Pradesh – By Suhit K Sen

…. Police forces throughout India are feared and loathed rather than trusted because they have come to enjoy unprecedented impunity. They have become a law unto themselves. And nowhere is this truer than in Uttar Pradesh, where Chief Minister Adityanath almost uses the state police forces as his private militia-subject to no control, no oversight other than his.

Soon after coming to power, Adityanath had infamously instituted…. an enterprise in which hooligans from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its organisations, mentored by the police, would harass young couples in public places. As we have now come to know, this was just one facet of the Adityanath government’s anti-minority – actually anti-Muslim – frame of reference. Thus, the anti-Romeo squads were a “plan” to prevent what an assortment of Sangh Parivar members call “love jihad”….

…. On 13 August, the Indian Express reported that the Uttar Pradesh police had carried out 8,472 “encounters” – usually extra-judicial engagements with people supposed to have broken the law-from 19 March 2017, when Adityanath became the chief minister. Also, 3,302 people have been injured in these extra-judicial operations, while 146 people have lost their lives….

https://www.newsclick.in/the-knock-door-now-defines-life-uttar-pradesh