‘Cops didn’t allow me to contact family': Ex-bureaucrat detained in Delhi during morning walk

The former bureaucrat alleged that he was questioned by the Delhi Police for over eight hours without his family being informed.

Former bureaucrat Ashish Joshi, who was detained by Delhi Police on Wednesday and questioned for more than eight hours, alleged that police neither informed his family about his detention nor allowed him to contact them, a claim denied by the force.

Ashish Joshi was picked up from Nehru Park while he was out on a morning walk, said his friends. ( Ashish Joshi @bismil_prasad/X)

Joshi told HT on Thursday that he was picked up from Nehru Park during his morning walk and taken to the counter-intelligence (CI) unit office in New Friends Colony, where he was questioned for over eight hours. He said he was initially told the questioning would take about 1-1.5 hours.

Detention over tweets on Bengal SIR, Jantar Mantar protest?

“I was informed that the FIR was related to a tweet of mine from August 26 on Bengal elections, when I said it was a mockery of democracy. I do not have a copy of this FIR. I was told that the Special Cell took suo motu cognisance of the tweet but a majority of the questions were about another tweet,” Joshi said.

The second post on X, dated August 13, concerned the government’s response to the Jantar Mantar protests and carried a notification stating that it was “withheld in India due to a legal demand”.

“I was picked up from Nehru Park on Wednesday morning and was told that the interrogation would last 1-1.5 hours but it took a lot longer. The police did not inform my family nor did they let me inform my family. The need of the hour is police reform,” he said.

Ashish Joshi seeks copy of FIR

On Thursday, Joshi, accompanied by his lawyers, reached Delhi Police headquarters at Jai Singh Road to meet police commissioner Anurag Kumar and submit an application seeking a copy of the FIR. “I am at the police headquarters to ask for the FIR copy to know why I was picked up and interrogated,” he said.

An officer confirmed that Joshi visited Delhi Police headquarters on Thursday. “Joshi met the Special Cell’s special commissioner of police (Anil Shukla) and submitted his application,” the officer said.

A police officer said the Special Cell had registered an FIR two days earlier and that “some links of Joshi emerged during the investigation”. Joshi was brought to the CI office for routine questioning, the officer said. “He cooperated with the investigation and was let go after the questioning concluded,” the officer said, adding that Joshi’s family had been informed when he was picked up.

Joshi disputed this. In a post on X around 1.30am Thursday, he said he was only allowed to call his family and friends at 6.38pm, after they had remained in “total panic” throughout the day.

He urged Delhi Police to issue instructions to all units to ensure families are immediately informed when a person is taken for interrogation or detained.

The Delhi Police on Thursday maintained that Joshi’s family was informed that he was picked up for questioning, but refused to comment further on his other allegations.