WATCH: Women at Citizenship Act protests in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah, chased and thrashed by cops 

Videos of anti-CAA demonstration by women in Uttar Pradesh show women agitators being chased and thrashed by cops. They also barge into shops and force them to shut, reveals a mobile phone footage that has surfaced from a protest in Etawah against Citizenship Amendment Act on Tuesday.

According to a report in NDTV, The video clips show the cops chasing women agitators in narrow lanes of Pachraha area and thrashing them with their stick in an effort to disperse the protesters.

Women protesters in a 17- second clip can be heard shouting, crying for help and asking cops as to why they are being thrashed.

Although, it is quite difficult to make out from the video footage whether cops hitting female protesters are men or women but sources in police have insisted that only women police personnel were tackling the women protesters.

Several mobile phone clips have shown police lathi-charging men who had gathered in the area. In one of the videos, police can be seen entering a roadside eatery. They thrash the employees and shut it down forcibly, reported NDTV

UP police have defended their crackdown, saying agitators had thrown stones at them first.

According to the report in NDTV, The protest had taken place in Pachraha on Tuesday afternoon. Initially, some 150 women joined the protest but by night the numbers had swelled to 500, as per local reporters.

Etawah police tweeted saying its personnel had been posted at the protest site and that protesters were being monitored.

Massive protests are raging in various parts of the country over the Citizenship Act. The Act, as per government, will help minorities from Muslim-dominated Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to get citizenship if they fled to India because of religious persecution.