Allegations that protesters were beaten inside buses, police posts and a makeshift detention centre in Delhi have brought the city’s protest-management system under scrutiny. Three men detained in connection with the CJP protests told The Indian Express that they were assaulted, while medical records cited in the report document injuries including bruises, abrasions, contusions and a fracture of the right elbow.
The allegations remain allegations, and the Delhi Police told the newspaper that it had not received complaints. A senior police official said that action would be taken under the relevant provisions of law if a complaint was received. But the accounts, taken together with the medical records described in the report, raise a central institutional question: what safeguards operate when large groups of people are detained during public protests, particularly after they are moved away from the original site of detention?
The reported events also show how quickly a protest-related policing operation can become an issue of urban governance. The people involved were not described only as protesters at a public gathering. They were moved through different parts of Delhi, placed in buses and held at police facilities or a community centre. That movement created several layers of responsibility, involving the personnel making the initial detentions, those supervising transport, and those responsible for conditions and medical assistance at the places where detainees were held.
The Indian Express report describes the case of Nihal Alam, a 36-year-old resident of Kishanganj in Bihar, who said he was visiting his sister in Bawana. Believing the protests had ended, he travelled by metro to Janpath and walked towards Connaught Place to buy clothes. He alleged that he was picked up at about 5 pm and taken in a roadways bus to Janpath before being moved to a detention centre at the community centre in Pandwalan Khurd, Dwarka.
Alam alleged that police personnel beat detainees with sticks inside a bus fitted with iron-barred partitions. He said he complained that his upper right arm was hurting but was not heard. A medico-legal certificate from a government hospital, according to the report, recorded a radial head fracture after an X-ray of his right elbow. The doctor advised further imaging to assess the bones and joint structures. Alam also said he received an injection and painkiller more than an hour after asking for first aid.
The account illustrates why medical documentation becomes significant in detention-related allegations. A statement about an assault is a claim by an individual. A medico-legal certificate does not by itself establish who caused an injury, but it records the injury and the medical examination associated with it. In this case, the report links Alam’s account to a documented fracture and to his allegation that he was denied immediate attention after requesting help.
A second detainee, Arjun Unnikrishnan, a 30-year-old law graduate and researcher, alleged that personnel inside the detention facility struck people across their bodies and kicked them in the chest, back and private parts. He said the cramped conditions left detainees with little room to move away. The medico-legal certificate cited in the report recorded “assault by unknown police personnel at 4:15pm near Rajeev Chowk” and listed injuries to his face, chest and back. He was prescribed medicines and painkillers.
The location described in that medical record is also important. The accounts span the original detention area, transport vehicles and facilities where detainees were held. That makes the question of record-keeping central: when a person is picked up, transported and transferred, the system must be able to establish who had custody at each stage and what condition the person was in when responsibility changed. The supplied report does not establish whether such a consolidated record exists in these cases.
The third account came from Fidal Tom, a 26-year-old Delhi-based lawyer who said he was detained during Saturday’s protest-related detentions and taken to the Sanjay Colony police post under Maidangarhi police station. He said he was held there with other detainees before being released at about 2 am on Sunday. His medico-legal certificate, prepared in the early hours of October 11 at Madan Mohan Hospital in Malviya Nagar, recorded swelling on the left side of his face, an abrasion above his left eye, injuries on both arms and multiple contusions and abrasions on his back.
The examination noted that the injuries were most likely caused by multiple blunt-object trauma, according to the report. Tom alleged that around 20 students were being held in a room and that a man in civilian clothes beat them. He further alleged that, after he questioned the man’s authority, he was taken into a small bathroom where around 10 police personnel beat him with lathis. These claims have not been independently established in the supplied material, but the medical record provides a documented basis for examining the allegations rather than treating them as unsupported verbal complaints.
The institutional gap is visible in the police response. The senior police official quoted by The Indian Express said that no complaints had been received and that action would follow if a complaint was made. That places the immediate burden on detainees to initiate the accountability process after release, even though the reported injuries include a fracture and multiple blunt-force injuries. The report does not state whether the police initiated an internal inquiry, preserved detention records or sought medical documentation independently.
This distinction matters because a detention system is not only a mechanism for removing people from a protest site. It also creates obligations concerning identification, custody, transport, accommodation and medical care. The report describes detainees being placed in buses with iron-barred partitions, held in cramped rooms and taken to a community centre described as a makeshift detention facility. It does not provide details of the operating protocols at those locations, the number of people detained, or the chain of command governing them.
The absence of those details is itself significant for public accountability. Without records showing when each person was detained, where they were taken, who supervised the transfer and when medical assistance was offered, allegations involving multiple sites are difficult to examine. Conversely, if such records exist, they could help establish the sequence of events and distinguish individual claims from patterns affecting several detainees.
The report also demonstrates the uneven costs of detention. Alam, who runs an eatery in his village, said doctors told him that a rod would be inserted and that the procedure would cost Rs 20,000. He returned home and said he would ask his family for money. The account places the consequences of protest policing beyond the immediate incident: an injury can create medical expenses, travel requirements and lost income for a person who may not live in Delhi.
For Tom and Unnikrishnan, the decision to obtain medico-legal certificates after release was presented as an attempt to preserve documentary evidence. That step may help create a record, but it depends on detainees knowing where to go, having access to a hospital and being able to act soon after release. The source material does not establish whether every detained person had those opportunities.
The larger urban question is how Delhi manages public order while maintaining transparent custody procedures. Protests take place in a city with extensive transport networks, high pedestrian movement and multiple policing jurisdictions. When people are moved from streets and transit areas to police posts or temporary holding facilities, the operation becomes geographically dispersed. Accountability therefore depends not only on the conduct of individual personnel, but also on whether the administrative system can track people across locations.
The evidence currently confirms that three detainees have alleged assault and that medical records cited by the newspaper document injuries. It does not establish, on the supplied material alone, who caused each injury or whether the allegations form part of a verified pattern across all detainees. The Delhi Police response also indicates that it had not received complaints when contacted. The next important developments are whether formal complaints are filed, whether the police conduct an inquiry, and whether detention, transfer and medical records are made available for scrutiny.
