HYDERABAD: The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the recent “brutal” police crackdown on peaceful protesters in the national capital. It also sought the immediate rollback of the SIR and the repeal of the CEC Act, 2023.
In a press statement issued here, the NAPM sought the restoration of Jantar Mantar as an accessible space for protests, the immediate release of all detained/arrested activists and the withdrawal of all false cases and FIRs against the protesters.
It demanded the resignation of the Union Home Minister and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), as well as full accountability for the police and right-wing violence on peaceful protesters.
It further stated that the two-year-old resistance against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has snowballed into a nationwide movement over the past two months. Violence against protesters, it said, is a grave assault on the fundamental democratic rights of Indian citizens.
Reports and video footage of police personnel brutally beating protesters, molesting and assaulting women demonstrators, and attacking journalists and women reporters covering the protests are deeply disturbing. Such conduct by the police, an institution entrusted with protecting citizens’ rights and upholding the law, is wholly unacceptable in a constitutional democracy.
Commenting on the Delhi police version that “permission was not granted” to carry out the protest, it stated that the police can never justify arbitrary detention, assault or the disproportionate use of police force against peaceful protesters.
Expressing grave concern over the reported deletion of over 13 crore voters from electoral rolls, it said that the deletion of such a staggering figure demands a transparent, independent and publicly accountable explanation. This is a perfectly reasonable democratic demand, it added.