The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Friday closed the gates of some stations after scores of students along with the members of the All-India Students’ Association (AISA) and Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) Chatr-Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) staged a protest over the Central Government’s ‘Agnipath’ scheme for recruitment in the armed forces and demanded its rollback.
In a series of tweets, the DMRC alerted commuters about the closure of gates of stations due to security reasons. “Due to security reasons, Gate No. 1 at ITO Metro Station and Gate No. 1 & 2 at Dhansa Bus Stand Metro Station are closed, all other gates are operational,” the DMRC tweeted around 12:19 PM.
However, around 1: 52 PM Delhi Metro in another tweet informed that the gates at Dhansa Metro Station were also opened.
Around 12:40 PM, the DMRC tweeted, “All gates of ITO Metro Station are closed.” It further updated and said that all gates of Delhi Gate and Jama Masjid Metro Stations were also briefly closed.
Later, at around 12:48 P.M. the DMRC tweeted that all gates were open for entry/exit at Delhi Gate and Jama Masjid Metro Stations.
Then at 4 PM it tweeted that all gates were open for entry and exit at ITO Metro Station.
According to Delhi Police, around 17-18 people belonging to AISA had gathered at the ITO to hold a protest. They were detained and immediately removed from the area.
During their protest, they raised slogans -- “Agnipath wapas lo, tanashahi nahi chalegi (take back Agnipath, dictatorship won’t work) and also held placards which read “Immediately fill all vacant posts in Defence on a permanent basis” and “Roll back Agnipath scheme.”
The Delhi unit of the SFI said it joined an all-India call against the Agnipath Scheme.
Earlier, the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) claimed that several IYC members have been detained and the barricades had been placed by the police without giving any reasons.
The police, however, said they had just made “adequate security arrangements” as the IYC had no permission to take out any protest march.
