Shut out of the designated protest site on Jantar Mantar Road, student groups staged serial flash protests across the capital and even on the Yamuna on Sunday.
Senior Left leaders who joined the agitation were detained. John Brittas, CPM Rajya Sabha member, was treated at a hospital after being grabbed by CRPF personnel while he was speaking to TV channels and “pinned down” inside a bus.
Adarsh M. Saji, president of CPM student wing SFI, was seen bleeding from his right eye, his shirt torn, after being dragged away by the police.
Given the security clampdown in Delhi, Neha Bora — president of the CPIML Liberation’s student arm AISA — called for the entire city to be turned into a protest site like Jantar Mantar.
Accompanied by some 90 comrades, she sprinted away from the police for a second day in a row, scaling barricades and covering the 1.5km from the Ramakrishna Ashram to Connaught Place in around 20 minutes.
Eventually, they ran into a police picket and were taken to a community hall turned detention centre in Daulatpur, southwest Delhi.
At least 12 reporters, including three from The Indian Express Hindi Online, at least one from Hindustan Times, and many from news websites as well as TV channels were detained despite their visible ID tags. Many of them had been released by evening.
“When we started the protest at R.K. Ashram, we realised that the police had underestimated the crowd and placed just a single row of barricades,” Neha told The Telegraph, chuckling over the phone, mindful of her prowess in scaling more elaborate barricades.
“We took the opportunity and just ran, pushing the barricades aside. The police were too few to stop us. We kept running until we reached CP,” she said.
Neha added: “I’m very bad with directions, so we ran around CP, then to the inner circle scaling another barricade, while looking for a way to Jantar Mantar. We saw some CJP people at the barricade and ran towards them, which is when we were detained.”
Videos show CRPF and Delhi Police personnel pinning the AISA protesters to the ground.
“I am not a professional runner, but chasing (chief election commissioner) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation has made me one,” said Neha, who had led the police on a merry chase on the Safdarjung Flyover on Saturday.
AISA has kept away from the joint news conferences held by the other Left student groups with the Cockroach Janta Party this week.
“The only reason for that is that we all have been protesting or been detained at the time,” Neha said.
Before the AISA demonstrators reached Connaught Place, the SFI leadership had been detained there and taken to the Maharaja Surajmal Stadium detention centre.
By the time Brittas arrived at 12.45pm to intervene on their behalf, the SFI detainees had been taken away.
As Brittas was speaking to a handful of TV channels at Connaught Place, a group of CRPF men arrived and carried him away despite him and the reporters protesting that he was an MP.
“They took me to a bus and pinned me down. Four constables held me down. I was choking,” Brittas, who has swellings on his chest and arms, told this newspaper.
“A boy named Sajith from Jharkhand was also detained inside the bus. He helped me. Just then DCP (New Delhi) Sachin Sharma called me, and Sajith gave the phone to the CRPF.
“They then took me to some desolate lane, put me in an auto and asked the driver to take me to hospital.... The doctors (at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital) said I should be there for a couple of days, but I’m going home now (Sunday evening).”
Brittas explained he didn’t want to “stay out of the protests”.
A Buddhist monk was seen saving a boy from being caned by the police.
At the same spot in Connaught Place, opposite the Khadi showroom, the police turned a blind eye as a group of hoodlums assaulted passing protesters.
Biju Xavier, a Catholic priest from the Sacred Heart Cathedral, was apprehended along with the SFI protesters at noon when he tried to record them being detained.
Activists complained of the police trying to snatch their phones.
Late in the afternoon, a small group from the Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India rushed towards Parliament from the Press Club of India on Raisina Road, carrying banners demanding that Gyanesh be removed. The police subdued them at the Rafi Marg roundabout.
This was the Congress’s first participation in a protest called by the CJP.
Several women SFI members were detained when they attempted another protest at Connaught Place in the evening.
CPI national secretary Annie Raja, and several leaders of her party’s student and youth wings, were detained while walking towards Jantar Mantar.
Earlier in the day, the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan — a student and youth organisation — had raised banners seeking the CEC’s removal while sitting in boats in the Yamuna.
The group had staged a flash protest opposite the Red Fort on Saturday that had caught the police unawares.
Letter to President
Brittas has written to the President and the Chief Justice of India seeking a court-monitored probe by officials from outside the Delhi Police and the CRPF.
He has also raised a breach of privilege complaint before the Rajya Sabha Chairman.
In his letter to President Droupadi Murmu, Brittas said: “If even an elected representative can be beaten after identifying himself as an MP and then abandoned on the roadside for peacefully engaging with the media, what protection can an ordinary citizen expect when confronted by an arbitrary exercise of State power?
“This is not a demand for special treatment for an MP. It is a demand that the law protect everyone equally and that those who enforce it remain accountable to it.”