Don’t harass people from north east, cops told

Delhi police was on Thursday directed by Delhi High Court not to harass people from the Northeast and Ladakh because of their resemblance with Tibetans, who are under the scanner for protesting Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit for the BRICS summit.

Delhi police was on Thursday directed by Delhi High Court not to harass people from the Northeast and Ladakh because of their resemblance with Tibetans, who are under the scanner for protesting Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit for the BRICS summit.

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A division bench appointed five lawyers to meet those detained to ascertain whether they are Tibetans and said, “It is the duty of the police not to harass people in the name of maintaining law and order.”

The court directed the Delhi police to shift the Tibetans who are lodged in Tihar to Ambedkar Bhavan where nearly 200 other Tibetans have been detained for staging protests.

The court, however, refused to restrain the police from detaining Tibetan protesters to maintain law and order.

The bench passed the order on an oral submission by Arun Asthana, a lawyer, that the police are harassing people from the Northeast and Ladakh as they look like
Tibetans. Harassment of citizens, Asthana said, violates their personal liberty.

Asthana cited the experience of two lawyers from the Northeast who faced police interrogation on Thursday morning and said “the police has made these people’s life miserable for past two days”.