Shocked Every Protester: Yogi Adityanath Justifies UP Crackdown

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday justified his government's crackdown on agitations against the Citizenship Amendment Act, saying that the action has "shocked" every protester into silence.

"Every rioter is shocked. Every troublemaker is shocked. Everybody has fallen silent after seeing the strictness of the Yogi Adityanath government. The Chief Minister has announced that anybody who damages public property will have to pay up. Every violent protester will cry now because there is a Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh," read a tweet from his office.

The tweet was a reference to the Yogi Adityanath government's decision to make protesters pay up for public property destroyed in Uttar Pradesh. As many as 21 people died in violent clashes that erupted in the state after the centre pushed the controversial bill through parliament earlier this month. Many of them died of gunshot injuries, although the government has denied opening fire at protesters with the exception of a single instance at Bijnore.

(Inputs and image from NDTV.com)