Neha Bora, Yogendra Yadav among 150 detained during second day of anti-CEC protest in Delhi
Around 150 protesters, including AISA national president Neha Bora, activist Yogendra Yadav and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, were detained in central Delhi on Saturday, an official said.
The protesters were marching from Patel Chowk towards Jantar Mantar for a second consecutive day of demonstrations demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. They have alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and mass deletion of voters.
AISA members said Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal and senior advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan, Pallav Sisodia and Prashant Bhushan joined Bora, Yadav and student activists during the march. The protesters crossed one layer of barricades before police stopped them near Jantar Mantar Road and moved them into buses, The Indian Express reported.
Police personnel were deployed at several points and roads leading to Jantar Mantar were barricaded. The New Delhi district remained under prohibitory orders, while around 5,000 police and paramilitary personnel had been deployed for the protests, according to police accounts reported by PTI and The Indian Express.
AISA members alleged that a male police officer manhandled Bora and that another officer abused her during the detention. The allegations could not be independently verified immediately. Delhi Police had not issued a public response to these specific allegations at the time of writing.
Saturday’s mobilisation followed Bora’s call asking activists to return to Jantar Mantar at 1 pm. In a video message after her release on Friday, she said the detentions would not stop the campaign demanding Kumar’s resignation.
Police detained nearly 1,000 people during Friday’s protest, according to a later Delhi Police estimate reported by PTI. Those detained included Bora, Yadav, AAP leaders Atishi, Sanjay Singh and Saurabh Bharadwaj, RJD MP Manoj Jha and several student organisation leaders. Many were subsequently released.
Delhi Police said Friday’s gathering had not received permission. Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita was imposed in the New Delhi district, prohibiting unauthorised assemblies, processions, sit-ins and sloganeering.
Police have registered at least three FIRs over Friday’s protest, two at Parliament Street police station and one at Connaught Place police station. Deccan Herald reported that the cases invoke Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for alleged disobedience of an order issued by a public servant. No person or organisation was named as an accused, according to the report.
Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib has separately moved the Delhi High Court against the police refusal to permit a proposed Jantar Mantar demonstration. His petition argues that police cannot turn their power to regulate peaceful assemblies into a power to prohibit them, according to an IYC statement reported by PTI.
The Election Commission has said differing views and observations are part of normal institutional deliberations and that its orders carry legal sanction and follow established procedures, according to The New Indian Express.
(With inputs from PTI)