Slogans on streets, drones overhead as protesters play hide-and-seek with police
The lane in front of Gurudwara Bangla Sahib filled with slogans a little after 1 pm. “Inquilab Zindabad” and “Jai Bhim” rang down the road as protesters stepped out of the gate in numbers. Police then came out from behind the gurudwara walls, also in large numbers, and began pulling people away from the entrance. Within ten minutes, police detained the protesters.
Many of them had been inside since the night before. After restrictions were announced on 9 October, they took shelter in the gurudwara to be in position the next morning. One of them was a 24-year-old woman in a mask. She said the group had been there since 9 am, after finding Jantar Mantar barricaded. Throughout the morning, she and others stepped out in small groups to chant slogans. They scattered whenever khaki came into view and came out again a little later.
The city around the gurudwara had been closed down from the night before. Entry and exit gates at about 45 Metro stations, among them Central Secretariat, Janpath, Rajiv Chowk and ITO, were shut from 9 pm on Friday until 6 pm on Saturday. Even so, people had already gathered at Jantar Mantar around 1.00 pm.
By 8.30 am, police had begun picking up those collecting near the protest site and putting them on buses. Nearby, a notice announcing Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita was pinned to a barricade. Police personnel patrolled, and a police van stood parked. Drones were up, and mobile internet had been cut within a four-km radius of Jantar Mantar. Police said they had detained 150 people by mid-morning. They said New Delhi had been divided into 20 zones, each with its own detention centre, and that stadiums across the city were also being used. Among the vehicles pressed into service were grilled buses normally used to ferry undertrials to court.
Around 11 am, police detained a group of lawyers marching from the Supreme Court towards Jantar Mantar. The Supreme Court Bar Association took the matter to the Chief Justice of India. By 1 pm, he and the Solicitor General had spoken to authorities about releasing the lawyers.
On Janpath Road, three layers of barricades and thousands of security personnel stood across the way. A protester named Nikhil, whose second visit this was, had spent the night mapping routes. He took a cab from Vasant Kunj to Bangla Sahib and walked the Outer Circle to Connaught Place. At Janpath, he found the barricades. CAPF and CRPF personnel held the site and the surrounding roads.
Throughout the day, protesters of different ages kept trying to get through. Some had come with their families. One brought her younger sister to show her that people can still come together and raise their voices.
About six students from Hindu College waited near Janpath Metro station.
They said they arrived around 6 am, before they expected the police to become active so that they could reach the protest site. Their backpacks held protein bars, masks and water bottles. They were prepared for a long day and hoped to join the others soon. One of the girls said that if young people didn’t demand accountability now, they would have no basis to stand up for their rights later.
