The protest rally being organised by the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) has emerged as a challenge for the Dehradun district police.
The police force which had already a tight schedule in the coming week because of the New Year and the pouring stream of tourists will now be facing another challenge of keeping law and order and traffic in place during the Congress protest rally on Saturday. It is important to mention here that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is slated to organise a rally in support of CAA on Sunday. Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Arun Mohan Joshi said, “Our teams are constantly in touch with the organisers of the rally.
Our aim is to ensure that people in rally can perform their democratic rights and citizens also don’t face any law and orders issue. For the same purpose and to manage traffic as well, the district police have been briefed. For the same we are planning to take additional force from Range and Police Headquarters (PHQ) level.”It is pertinent to mention here that CAA protests has brought fury from multiple left and centre to left organisations and political parties. The protests and rallies in Uttarakhand including Dehradun have been comparatively peaceful then most States. However, senior police officials at PHQ have directed districts to be on constant alert.
According to the sources, both rallies by PCC and BJP have become a matter of show-off strength rather than about CAA issue, but district officials state that their responsibility is to keep peace and sanctity of district and that is what they will be there for on Saturday.