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CJP protest: 600 detained as police crack down on Mumbai protest
The aim was to prevent protestors from reaching the historic August Kranti Maidan, from where Mahatma Gandhi had launched the Quit India Movement with the iconic “Do or Die” call for freedom from colonial British rule
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MUMBAI: As chants of “Vote chor, gaddi chhod” (“Vote thief, vacate your seat”) rang out, the old and historic neighbourhood of Nana Chowk in South Mumbai spontaneously turned into a fortified protest site on Saturday.
More than 300 police personnel chased citizens supporting the CJP-led protest in Delhi against Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar; they broke human chains forming spontaneously; and stuffed protestors into waiting police vans before carting them off to seven police stations. Police also used a drone to monitor the gathering.
The aim was to prevent protestors from reaching the historic August Kranti Maidan, from where Mahatma Gandhi had launched the Quit India Movement with the iconic “Do or Die” call for freedom from colonial British rule.
On Saturday, the maidan was to be the site of the protest organised by Hum Bharat Ke Log, a civil society collective led by Tushar Gandhi, veteran activist and great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, in support of the CJP-led agitation in the national capital. The Mumbai Police made sure that did not happen.
Police claim around 600 citizens were detained in Mumbai on Saturday – around 400 at Nana Chowk and 200-odd elsewhere in the city. The detainees include Tushar Gandhi, his daughter Kasturi Gandhi, actor Imran Khan, Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Varun Sardesai, and CPI leader Prakash Reddy.
The police crackdown began at 3.45pm as waves of protesting citizens poured into the area. Around two dozen police vans lined the streets and kept carting away citizens. Protestors raised slogans wherever they were halted.
When police attempted to disperse protesters beneath the Nana Chowk flyover, some climbed the structure and continued shouting slogans, only to be detained there as well. Sloganeering protesters banged on police vans and continued their protest inside the vehicles, in one instance breaking the door before escaping, witnesses said.
The slogans grew sharper as the detentions continued. “Jab-jab Modi darte hain, police ko aage karte hain” (‘Whenever Modi is afraid, he puts the police in front’), protesters shouted as police led them away.
Police also stopped bystanders, sought identity cards and questioned people in the vicinity, asking them why they were there. Some were allowed to leave, while “suspicious” bystanders were detained.
Ayushi Jain, 26, a visual artist participating in the protest, said, “I have become concerned about how CEC Gyanesh Kumar was put in charge of an undemocratic exercise and how names have been struck off the electoral rolls. There is panic everywhere. The Election Commission was supposed to worry about this. Now the roles have been reversed. If a constitutional body is acting this way, then the same Constitution gives us the right to protest.”
Dolphy D’Souza, spokesperson for the Bombay Catholic Sabha, one of the organisations that supported the call, said the turnout reflected growing public discontent. “It has been established without a doubt that the country has had enough of this. Citizens are clamouring for change, which will come,” he said.
Shailendra Kamble, secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Mumbai unit, remarked, “They (ruling dispensation) fear they will be thrown out of their positions. That is why the state has to resort to detaining citizens when protesting is a fundamental right.”
Tushar Gandhi said, “Regardless of the detentions, regardless of the pressures, we will continue the struggle. This is a struggle for freeing and revamping every institution in such a way that instead of serving the powerful, they support the ordinary citizen. Until that is achieved, the struggle will go on.”
Gandhi said he had been picked up in Bandra and detained at around 11:00am, and taken to the DN Nagar Police Station. At 3:00pm, he was led out of the police station on the pretext of a medical check-up but brought to the Borivali Police Station instead.
When he asked a police officer why he had been taken to a police station instead of a hospital, he was told that the crowd at DN Nagar Police Station was growing, so he had been shifted to Borivali.
On the outcome of Saturday’s agitatin in Mumbai, Kunal Kamerkar, the CJP’s deputy chief in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, said, “It was heartening and motivating to see such a large number of people come out. It was particularly encouraging to see a veteran like Tushar Gandhi support the movement. Mumbai has always shown that whenever people come out to stand up for democratic rights, they do so in huge numbers. We are pleased with today’s participation, but we expect thousands more to join the movement in the coming days.”
CJP workers claim they had emailed the Mumbai Police seeking permission to protest peacefully at the maidan but had received no response. Police, however, claim no permission had been sought. They also said they could not grant permission as the Bombay High Ccourt’s directions allow protests only at Azad Maidan.
Gamdevi police have registered one First Information Report (FIR) covering all 600-odd detainees and have booked them under section 126 for “wrongful restraint”, section 189 for “:unlawful assembly” and section 223 for “disobedience to an order lawfully issued by a public servant” of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
By 8:45pm, the police had dispersed at Nana Chowk and the barricades were removed, police said.
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