Several students and activists associated with Krantikari Yuva Sangathan were detained by the police on Tuesday after they burned the effigy of chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar during Dussehra celebrations near Delhi’s Model Town. Krantikari Yuva Sangathan is a Delhi-based independent student and youth organisation.
Police said the students were occupying space in a park, burning an effigy and protesting after which they were briefly detained.
The alleged effigy-burning took place at Sangam Park near Model Town in northwest Delhi where the KYS students erected a 20-feet tall effigy with a poster of Gyanesh Kumar and slogans such as “Sack Gyanesh Kumar”, “Loot-tantra” and “Discrimination, Injustice”.
The student organisation had made the announcement about burning the effigy of Kumar alongside Ravana on Monday. On Tuesday, the group was joined by some locals to burn the effigy but were stopped by the police.
Jyoti, a Delhi University student associated with KYS, told HT, “We are well within our rights to burn a Ravana effigy. Why are they trying to protect Gyanesh from everything? We just want to show our dissent. The police came in. We don’t know who called them or if they were tracking us. There was a tussle but we still managed to burn the effigy. After burning the effigy, the policemen got angry and pushed us. Many of the students managed to leave but some were detained”
Mudiya, the national spokesperson of KYS said the programme was organised to highlight the issue of irregularities in SIR of electoral polls. “Several activists were illegally detained by the police after the programme. Effigy burning is a form of freedom of speech and expression that is a fundamental right. Numerous judgments by high courts and the Supreme Court have upheld effigy burning as a form of expression protected under Article 19 of the Constitution of India.”
A senior police officer said the protesters had not taken any permission for the protest and were burning effigy near a residential colony. “We had only removed a few protesters and detained 10-12 people. They were released within a few hours” said an officer.
As Dussehra is being celebrated and effigies of Ravana are being burnt at various spots in the country, organisers at Pitampura ground in Delhi made a 30-foot long cockroach effigy, a veiled attack at the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) which is under legal scrutiny amid its protests against the CEC over the alleged discrepancies in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.