CHANDIGARH: Around 200 students from Punjab travelled to Delhi by changing trains and taking buses to attend the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)-led protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at Jantar Mantar on Saturday were detained by the Delhi Police while marching towards the protest site.
In neighbouring Haryana, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was reportedly taken into custody from his Gurugram residence, while farmer leaders and Opposition politicians were placed under house arrest.
The students, mobilised by the Punjab Students Union and Naujawan Bharat Sabha, both affiliated with the CPI(ML), spent Friday night at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib before setting out for Jantar Mantar on Saturday morning. They were detained and taken to Suraj Mal Stadium and Rajiv Gandhi Stadium. Some were put on buses and dropped along the Sonipat road, away from the national capital.
Punjab Students Union state president Ranbir Singh Randhawa said efforts were under way to secure the students’ release. He said they had changed their train tickets and routes and travelled by sleeper buses to reach Delhi to protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and demand Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. “We came because we had decided that we had to reach,” he said.
“Today we started moving towards Jantar Mantar from Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, the police first lathi charged and then arrested hundreds of youth and detained them after converting Keshavpuram police station, Suraj Mal Stadium and Rajiv Gandhi Stadium into makeshift open prisons,” Randhawa claimed. He added that around 20 women students were among those detained.
Those detained included Naujawan Bharat Sabha general secretary Karamjit Maanuke, Naunihal Singh, Punjab Students Union general secretary Dheeraj Fazilka, Baljit Dharmkot, Gurdas Singh, Davinder Chabilpur, Harjinder Singh Khokhar, Harveer Kaur and Sukhpreet Kaur.
Student leaders said they had managed to register a symbolic protest and would return to Punjab.
Meanwhile, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was reportedly taken into custody from his Gurugram residence by the Delhi Police, according to the CJP’s social media account. It claimed that nearly 50 policemen in plain clothes reached his house around 8 am and took him away. The Delhi Police has not confirmed the details.
Rathee, who hails from Rohtak, lives in Berlin with his German wife, Juli, and had returned from Germany two days earlier. CJP leaders had also posted a video on social media announcing his association with the party.
Haryana Police also placed farmer leaders and Opposition politicians under house arrest across the state. Congress MLA Shishpal Kehrwala of Kalanwali in Sirsa was among those placed under house arrest. In Sonipat, police pulled Congress workers heading to Delhi off a bus and kept them at a police station. Security was also tightened around a woman farmer leader in Rohtak.
In Rewari, Bharatiya Kisan Union (Tikait) state general secretary Ramkishan Mahlawat, who was scheduled to leave for Delhi on Saturday morning, was placed under house arrest. Halka president Mahendra Singh was detained, while Monika Nain, president of the Haryana women’s wing of the Kisan Pratishtha Manch, was not allowed to leave her house.
Separately, the Railways cancelled several services on the Hisar-Delhi route for October 10 and 11. These included train numbers 54316 (Hisar-Rewari), 54325 (Rewari-Hisar) and 54310 (Hisar-Delhi). No reason was given for the cancellations.