The ongoing protests against the rape of 5-year old girl apparently fizzled out on Monday after two consecutive days of widespread protest in the Capital. Though a handful of protesters staged demonstration at AIIMS, where the victim is recuperating; there was no major agitation reported from the city. There were protest march led by the Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel in the morning but the day remained largely peaceful.
However, security personnel continued maintaining a tight vigil at strategic locations like India Gate, Jantar Mantar, Police Headquarters and the residences of prominent leaders including the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. A handful of protesters led by Shobha Vijender demonstrated outside the police headquarters in the afternoon but were removed.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members who had laid siege at the Police Headquarters for the last two-days also left the protest venue by Monday morning. The protest witnessed little public support as a majority of them resumed work after an extended weekend over which the protest had swelled enormously. This resulted in lesser traffic jams in the city especially the ITO intersection that remained clogged for the last two days. Traffic also moved smoothly in the other Central and New Delhi areas. However, as precautionary measure, three Metro stations — Central Secretariat, Udyog Bhavan and Race Course — were closed to discourage protesters from reaching the areas like Rajpath, India Gate and the PM residence. This caused much inconvenience to scores of office goers in these areas.
Earlier, BJP supporters took police by surprise as they reached Parliament gate no 1 to stage a protest demanding the resignation of Sheila Dikshit and Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar. Police had barricaded Pandit Pant Marg near Parliament House Complex but the BJP workers led by Vijay Goel took a different route near the office and reached the Rakabganj Road opposite Parliament complex.
“We want the removal of the Chief Minister and the Delhi Police Commissioner, since they should take up the moral responsibility for whatever happened,” said Goel, who along with his nearly 200 supporters was detained by the police.
Some women’s organisations also took out a march towards Parliament demanding removal of Delhi Police Commissioner and other officers in the wake of the rape case, but were prevented by police. The protesters had gathered at Jantar Mantar in the morning and started their march later. They tried to break barricades and march towards Parliament but were prevented by police.