Metro commuters faced inconvenience on Tuesday afternoon as the Delhi Police had ordered the closure of three Metro stations to prevent Shias from holding protest at Karbala in South Delhi. Apart from this, stringent security arrangements were in place in highly-secured New Delhi district especially near 10 Janpath, 24 Akbar Road and 7 Race Course Road. Two Metro stations — Jorbagh and INA — were closed from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm. While the Race Course Metro station was closed for nearly two hours.
Meanwhile, Shia protesters on Tuesday night blocked National Highway 24 demanding release of their religious head Maulana Kalbe Jawwad who was detained by the police. In another late night development, over 5,000 people from Muzaffarnagar were heading towards Capital in their vehicles to stage a protest in front of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s residence.
Earlier, the Shia protesters first gathered near the Vaishali Metro station and then moved toward Ghazipur where more members of their group had gathered as per their plan. Thousand of protesters along with Jawwad then started marching towards Delhi border. However, the Delhi Police did not allow the protesters to cross the borders. Jawwad and hundreds of protesters were detained and taken to the Mandawali police station. Hundreds of people in more than ten buses had reached near the border to join the protest. Soon after Jawwad was detained hundreds of protesters reached outside the police station and demanded his release.
Protesters demanded an impartial judicial probe into the Karbala issue to rectify incorrect versions of events given by the Delhi Police. “We wanted to carry out a peaceful protest but the police officials did not let us mover forward. We will carry on our protest and will march to 24, Akbar Road tomorrow,” said Anjuman-e-Haideri spokesperson Bilal Husain.