KOCHI: Four representatives of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) from Keralam have alleged that they were assaulted by the Delhi Police and subjected to inhuman treatment while being detained during protest in Delhi on Friday.
Sivapriya Pradeep, Isha Harris Mariam, Sanoop Devadas and Akshay Radhakrishnan had travelled to Delhi on Thursday to participate in the protest. The first three are CJP’s south zone coordinators, while Akshay is an actor and a member of the CJP.
Sivapriya said the protesters were initially sitting peacefully on the road when the police asked them to move to the roadside. Though they complied, the police allegedly began pushing them forcefully. The protesters then formed a human chain, with women at the front, to resist the police action. However, the police continued trying to remove them, she alleged.
Sivapriya said the protesters were dragged into a police bus even after 6pm, the deadline for detaining women protesters. She alleged that women police personnel were not deployed to handle the women protesters.
“My friend Isha was pushed into the bus, clutching her stomach. Sanoop was brutally stamped on his private parts. I was pulled by my hair and pushed inside,” she said.
The protesters said they were then taken in the bus to a location on the outskirts of Delhi.
“We were detained for two hours. When one of the women protesters wanted to use the washroom, police officials told her to relieve herself inside the bus. The woman later fainted,”she said.
The protesters then broke open the bus’s emergency door to get out. They said they were left stranded at the location, with no metro station or transport facilities nearby, and were trying to figure out how to return with concerns that they could be detained again.
