NEW DELHI: The national capital was placed under siege on Saturday as police launched a sweeping crackdown on protesters attempting to march to Jantar Mantar to demand the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Police detained Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, and four former chief ministers: Pinarayi Vijayan, Mamata Banerjee, Manik Sarkar and Arvind Kejriwal. In all, about 7,000 protesters were taken into custody.
While the government managed to thwart mass mobilisation at Jantar Mantar by putting up barricades at every 50 metres, the Opposition denounced the situation as “worse than the Emergency”. Throughout the day, loudspeakers blared warnings to protesters against assembling amid the deployment of more than 30,000 security personnel and waves of barricades in Lutyens’ Delhi, giving it a fortress-like look.
CPM general secretary M A Baby, veteran leader Brinda Karat, CPI(M-L) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, activist Yogendra Yadav, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and All India Students’ Association (AISA) president Neha Bora were also detained from different places during the day.
Dipke, Das and Ranka were detained from inside the aircraft as soon as their flight landed at the IGI Airport from Mumbai. “We are here to be arrested, come and arrest us,” Dipke could be heard telling police officers who entered the aircraft. Rathee, who lives abroad and had come to India to join the CJP protest, was detained from Gurugram.
The Congress was conspicuous by its absence from the protest. However, Rahul Gandhi, who was in Chennai for the Chhatron Ki Goonj event, urged the youth to “keep protesting” and asserting that “we are going to ensure that this regime and the people who have attacked the Constitution are defeated.”
The detentions did not deter the protesters from trying to reach the venue. Left student unions managed to reach the BJP headquarters. However, they were detained as soon as they started protesting.
A large number of police personnel detained groups of protesters from several places, including Hanuman Temple, Akashvani Bhavan, Safdarjung Flyover and Kerala House. The police detained a few others who managed to reach the Jantar Mantar site.
Around 1 pm, some protesters hurled stones at security personnel near Akashvani Bhavan after jumping barricades, injuring two police personnel. The protesters were quickly detained by security personnel.
A large number of police personnel detained groups of protesters from several places, including Hanuman Temple, Akashwani Bhawan, Safdarjung Flyover and Kerala House. Police had arranged over 200 buses, being used to detain and transfer protesters.
In an unprecedented move, police entered Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, and detained several protesters who had taken refuge there. All mosques and temples in the vicinity of Jantar Mantar were shut.
Several journalists claimed that they were detained. Reporters alleged that they were detained despite displaying their press identity cards, and that their phones were seized.