Anti-SIR protest enters second day, cops detain 160 student-led protesters

The protest saw participants from various backgrounds, including students and activists, amid a heavy police presence.

Nearly 160 people were detained on Saturday when they attempted to gather at Jantar Mantar to protest against the special intensive revision of voter rolls and demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, police officers aware of the matter said.

AISA national president Neha Bora, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan and RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj led the march. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

Lawyers, activists and students were among hundreds of protesters who joined the All India Students’ Association’s (AISA’s) call for a protest march, a day after over 1,000 people were detained for attempting to protest on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti.

“Nearly 160 people were detained and were taken to different police stations,” said a police officer, requesting anonymity.

Meanwhile, Ratna Singh, Cockroach Janta Party’s lawyer, alleged that one of the protesters in Delhi was allegedly sexually abused by a policeman. When asked about the same, a senior police officer said that complaints were received from women who alleged that they were sexually harassed by security personnel.

While AISA had given the protest call and asked people to gather around 1pm, the march started by around 3pm. Many protesters gathered on Ashoka Road, as the route to the rear side of the protest site remained barricaded, with hundreds of security personnel guarding it.

Nearly two hours after the scheduled start of the protest, AISA national president Neha Bora, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan and RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj led the march amid a heavy security presence in and around the protest site.

The march started from the Vithalbhai Patel House near the Patel Chowk Metro station and continued up to Jantar Mantar Chowk. Within 15 minutes of the march starting, the police began detaining people, AISA member and former JNUSU president N Sai Balaji told HT.

After repeatedly announcing that permission had not been granted for the gathering and that prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) were in force across the New Delhi district, police attempted to disperse the crowd and detained several protesters, including Bora, Bhushan and Yadav.

Eighteen-year-old Yash Tomar, a college student from Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat, said he had recently become eligible to vote and was excited to exercise his franchise in the upcoming state elections, but questioned whether his vote would matter at all. “Everyone is excited to turn 18 and start exercising the right to vote. But these irregularities have taken away my confidence in that right,” Tomar said.

A 22-year-old college student said on the condition of anonymity, “I find there is a significant gap between the functioning of the Election Commission and what the institution promises, compared with what is taught in social science textbooks in schools. I think the current CEC must resign.”