Delhi protests over the demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the rollback of the Special Intensive Revision were pushed away from Jantar Mantar on Saturday after police denied permission for the demonstration and imposed security restrictions across central Delhi.
Barricades and movement restrictions around Connaught Place, Janpath and Parliament Street prevented protesters from reaching the designated protest area. The restrictions also affected journalists, several of whom said they were stopped despite carrying media identification cards while attempting to reach Connaught Place, Jantar Mantar and Parliament Street.
The protest was organised by the Cockroach Janata Party, student groups and Left organisations. After the gathering could not proceed at Jantar Mantar, All India Students’ Association national president Neha Bora and other activists mobilised elsewhere. Bora, along with psephologist Yogendra Yadav, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, led a gathering from Jor Bagh towards Dilli Haat-INA.
Bora later said on social media, “I am in detention, but the movement is not,” while urging supporters to gather near Safdarjung Flyover and Sri Aurobindo Marg. Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke and spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were intercepted and detained after arriving, according to the report.
Some protesters took shelter inside Bangla Sahib as police restricted movement near Jantar Mantar. Estimates cited in the report put the number of people sheltering there at between 30 and 50. Protesters alleged that some participants had been taken between 20 and 50 kilometres away and released, making it difficult for them to regroup.
Danish, an AISA joint secretary, alleged that police lathi-charged students, misbehaved with women protesters and dragged some of them by their hair before detaining them. He also alleged that officers did not tell detainees where they were being taken. These allegations were not independently verified, and Delhi Police had not commented on them at the time of reporting.
Sarika, a research scholar who declined to identify her institution, alleged that police and Central Reserve Police Force personnel chased protesters towards Bangla Sahib and that some people outside the gurdwara were dragged away. She also criticised organisers for not keeping participants informed about alternative gathering points. Other protesters questioned the scale of the police deployment and alleged that people were moved away to prevent them from assembling.
The restrictions also created uncertainty over how journalists could access the affected areas. A journalist with Informist Media said she was stopped while travelling from Mandi House towards Connaught Place and directed towards India Gate. According to the report, a Delhi Police head constable told her that the identity card she showed was not valid for passage.
A senior police official reportedly said government guidelines should have been stricter because not every journalist carried a Press Information Bureau card. The incident raised questions about how official instructions requiring journalists to carry valid identification were being implemented on the ground.
The report does not specify how many people were detained or the legal sections, if any, applied to those taken into custody. Delhi Police had not issued a response to the allegations or the reported access restrictions when the story was published.
