The UP police has booked an independent journalist, Zakir Ali Tyagi, under the Goondas Act. Tyagi, who is also the vice president of rights group National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO), hails from Meerut, and had been framed by the police under false charges earlier as well.
The case against Tyagi was registered in Parikshitgarh Police Station in Meerut on April 25, this year. As per a report by Maktoob Media, Tyagi got to know about the case after two police officers informed him the details of the case on June 23, three months after he was booked under the Goondas Act.
Tyagi said that he has been framed by the police after his organization NCHRO filed complaints against the custodial deaths in the state to the National Human Rights Commission(NHRC). The offences registered against Tyagi in the FIR also include cow slaughter.
“I am a freelance journalist and human rights activist. I carry out my activism by joining the National Confederation of Human Rights Organization (NCHRO), an organization providing legal help to the victims of rights violations,” told Tyagi.
He, further, added “Within six months in UP, eight people have been died in the police custody. We have raised this issue very seriously. A complaint has also been lodged in NHRC for proper investigation of the custodial death of the youth.”
He said that this was the reason the police has been targeting him time and again. He, further, narrated his ordeal of how he has been arrested several times for the past few years for no reason at all.
Zakir Ali Tyagi said that back in the year 2017, he was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police for two of Facebook posts he had posted. One of the posts was a joke about the criminal record of then newly appointed Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath.
Tyagi, who was 18-year old then, was booked under the Information Technology Act and spent 42 days in jail. Tyagi was arrested again in August 2020, for alleged cow slaughter, by the Qila Parikshitgarh Police in Meerut.
Tyagi was arrested with another Muslim resident of Aminabad, Ahmad, who was just 17 years of age. Both of them were granted bail after spending 16 days in jail.