Student protesters were detained in Bengaluru on Saturday after attempting to march from Freedom Park towards the Election Commission office, where they were demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the withdrawal of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Members of several student organisations had gathered at Freedom Park and raised slogans against the SIR process. Heavy security was deployed at the site, with roads barricaded on both sides to prevent the protesters from reaching the Election Commission office, which is located a few hundred metres away, according to a statement issued by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) Karnataka.
The organisations involved in the demonstration included AISA, the Students’ Federation of India, the All India Democratic Students’ Organisation and the All India Students’ Federation. The protesters were allegedly detained shortly after attempting to move towards the office, the report said.
AISA Karnataka alleged that the protesters were taken into custody when they tried to bypass the barricades. It condemned what it described as police action against the demonstration and questioned the legality of the detentions. The organisation said the action amounted to suppression of the right to protest.
The incident brought Freedom Park’s role as Bengaluru’s designated protest space into focus. The protest organisers alleged that several areas within the park had remained barricaded for the past five years, restricting the space available for public demonstrations. They called on the Karnataka government to remove the barricades and allow the protest to proceed peacefully.
The organisations also demanded that the state government stop the detentions and release those taken into custody. Their demands were linked to objections over alleged irregularities in the SIR process, though the supplied report does not provide details of the specific electoral-roll discrepancies cited by the protesters.
Freedom Park has frequently been used for public demonstrations in Bengaluru, while its location near major government and institutional offices makes crowd control a recurring administrative concern. In this case, the short distance between the park and the Election Commission office led authorities to deploy hundreds of personnel and restrict movement on the connecting roads, according to the organisers’ statement.
The protest groups said the Karnataka government should ensure that citizens can exercise their democratic rights without intimidation or obstruction. The supplied report did not include a response from the police, the Election Commission or the Karnataka government regarding the detentions, the barricades or the allegations made by the organisers.
