Avengers need not be angels. The chain of events unfolding in Uttar Pradesh suggests that vengeance can be fuelled by diabolical intent. Uttar Pradesh along with the rest of India had erupted in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, a legislation that puts citizenship to a religious test. The state, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, seems to have paid a heavy price for its spontaneous rage: the death toll in the protest against the CAA has risen to 19 with a functionary, admitting belatedly, to the police firing upon the protesters. A number of their bodies, reports state, bear bullet marks. But then, the men in uniform were merely obeying their boss. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister, had warned that he would seek revenge. Death, evidently, has not been the only form of State retribution. The police, aided by ‘civilians’, have now unleashed terror in the form of targeted retaliation. Specifically Muslim households have been vandalized in Meerut, Bijnor, Kanpur, Muzaffarnagar, and young people from the community picked up randomly; thousands of protesters have been arrested or put in preventive custody. Not all of them are Muslim; neither can it be said with certainty that every incarceration is legitimate. The action on the ground is consistent with the disturbing signals that continue to come from the top. Authorities in two districts, Rampur and Gorakhpur, have sent notices to 60 citizens, threatening to confiscate their property for their role in the violence. Was due process followed in identifying the accused? A prejudiced police force is hardly a reliable arbiter of justice. Karnataka, meanwhile, has decided to renege on ex gratia payments to the families of those who were killed in police firing in Mangalore. In a speech, the prime minister, tellingly, prioritized the responsibilities of citizens over their rights. These public duties, in the prime minister’s learned opinion, include those that beholden the people to the police.

The BJP’s strategy is obvious. Amplifying the violence — even though the anti-CAA constituency denies being the perpetrator — could, the party hopes, raise questions about the integrity of the protest, leading to its eventual dissipation. The theory, unfortunately, is not quite flawless. Why is it that the protests are invariably turning unruly in the states that remain under the BJP’s thumb? Why have the culprits — the mysterious civilians accompanying the marauding police? — not been identified? Is that because something is rotten in the state of UP?