Bengaluru police detained hundreds of young people, including members of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and activists from the Cockroach Janta Party, after they gathered outside Town Hall on Saturday evening to protest the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, according to a report by the Times of India.
The gathering took place after police denied AISA permission to hold the protest at Town Hall. The application had been submitted to the jurisdictional police at Ulsoor Gate station. Police cited High Court orders restricting protests and agitations in Bengaluru to Freedom Park and advised the organisers to move the demonstration there.
Despite the denial, AISA announced on social media that its members would assemble outside Town Hall. The protesters subsequently reached the location, where police detained them. The Times of India report described those detained as numbering in the hundreds and identified young people, AISA members and activists from the Cockroach Janta Party among them.
The incident highlights the operational limits placed on demonstrations at prominent civic spaces in central Bengaluru. Town Hall is a major public building and a visible gathering point, while Freedom Park has been designated as the city’s principal location for protests under the court-linked restrictions cited by police.
The immediate dispute was not over whether the group could protest, but over where the protest could take place. Police maintained that the application for Town Hall could not be approved under the applicable High Court orders and offered Freedom Park as the alternative venue. The organisers nevertheless proceeded with their announced gathering at Town Hall.
The SIR exercise was the subject of the protest, but the supplied report does not provide further details about the protesters’ demands or the specific issues they raised. It also does not include a statement from the police on the number of people detained, the duration of their detention or whether any cases were registered.
The episode leaves the next procedural steps unclear. Further details on the detainees, police action and whether the organisers will shift the protest to Freedom Park were not available in the supplied report.
