NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has observed that members of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) staged a shirtless protest at the AI Impact Summit on February 20 that “transcended the ambit of legitimate dissent” and amounted to a blatant assault on public order, imperilling India’s diplomatic image before foreign stakeholders.
Judicial Magistrate Ravi made the observation while remanding four IYC worker—rishna Hari, Kundan Yadav, Ajay Kumar, and Narasimha Yada—to the custody of the Delhi Police for five days in an order passed on February 21.
The court also denied bail to the four, noting that they hail from different states and that the possibility of their interfering with evidence cannot be ruled out. The magistrate said there was sufficient material on record to allow the Delhi Police’s plea seeking custodial interrogation of the accused.
According to the prosecution, the IYC members staged a protest inside the India AI Impact Summit held at Bharat Mandapam. While several activists entered the venue, the four accused removed their shirts to reveal T-shirts bearing slogans such as “PM is compromised”, criticised the India-US trade deal, and raised slogans against the Prime Minister and government policies.
Police apprehended the four, accusing them of breaching security at the venue and raising “anti-national” slogans.
In the order, the magistrate stated, “The accused persons orchestrated a premeditated intrusion into the high-security precincts of Bharat Mandapam, donned provocative T-shirts bearing offensive slogans such as ‘India-US Trade Deal Compromised’, vociferously raised incendiary chants, obstructed public servants in the discharge of their duties, and perpetrated physical assaults causing grievous injuries to police personnel.”
“Such conduct palpably transcends the ambit of legitimate dissent, metamorphosing into a blatant assault on public order. It imperils not merely the sanctity of the event but also the Republic’s diplomatic image before foreign stakeholders, rendering it wholly unprotected by constitutional safeguards,” the magistrate added.