Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib in New Delhi after a protest call by the Cockroach Janta Party against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, while police detained more than 100 people outside the gurdwara on Saturday afternoon, according to The Indian Express.
The gurdwara is located around 1 kilometre from the Election Commission of India office on Ashoka Road. The area around the Commission had been heavily secured in response to the protest call, with demonstrators arriving from Delhi and other states.
A staff member of the gurdwara management told The Indian Express that police had urged the management to send the protesters out, but the request was refused. The staff member said people had been peacefully sitting, sleeping and eating inside the premises and that those entering the gurdwara were treated as visitors.
“Police are not allowed inside. Police can come only when there is a serious criminal incident, but these are students who have come to protest, which is their right. They cannot force them out… they are not criminals,” the staff member was quoted as saying.
Protesters continued to move in and out of the gurdwara during the day. Some groups stepped outside the main gate in the afternoon and were detained. Yash Sen, who travelled from Agra for the protest, told the newspaper that anyone leaving the premises was being detained. He said he had been at the gurdwara since the previous night along with several others.
Kamaljeet Singh, a devotee who had travelled from Madhya Pradesh with his wife, said around 1,000 to 2,000 student protesters had arrived at the gurdwara since the previous night. He alleged that police personnel came to detain protesters at about 8 am and that some officers entered the area near the main gate before the management asked them to leave. Singh estimated that 150 to 200 students were detained outside the gurdwara.
One protester, Anuradha Mewara, said she had travelled from Rajasthan to participate in the demonstration and demand the Election Commissioner’s resignation. She said she was detained outside the gurdwara, taken around in a bus and later dropped near the Red Fort.
The detentions occurred as protesters inside the gurdwara awaited further instructions from the CJP. Yohan Makwana, who travelled from Gujarat, said demonstrators were waiting for a call from Ajinkya Shinde. Afzal, a resident of Seelampur, said he planned to return the following day while waiting for updates.
The report does not include a police statement on the number of people detained, the grounds for the detentions or the arrangements made for protesters taken away from the gurdwara. Further developments are expected as the organisers issue instructions on the protest and police operations continue around the Election Commission area.
