Police are asking why they are being made to beat up youth and “BJP-RSS goons” are beating up women, leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi claimed on Monday ahead of his scheduled march to the Supreme Court, with visuals emerging from the last two days from the streets of Delhi showing men without uniform thrashing protesters and even molesting women while police forcibly detain even those demonstrating peacefully.
The crackdown on protesters in the national capital, which has drawn international media headlines and also concern from the UN, is also happening when fresh violence in the border state of Manipur has left at least nine people dead and around 14 houses burnt since Friday night.
Groups of men have been moving around central Delhi, threatening and assaulting demonstrators, even as the capital chokes under a police clampdown.
Multiple videos on X and media reports stated that men wearing saffron scarves assaulted protesters despite prohibitory orders. Videos showed groups moving through protest areas in full view of police personnel.
One video that sparked particular outrage showed four men assaulting a peaceful male protester on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. When a young woman rushed to his rescue, one man pushed her and threw her to the ground and began beating her. Two cops visible in the frame failed to intervene immediately.
One of the cops appeared to be signalling to the attackers to stop the recording of the violence, rather than intervening to thwart the assault. Without restraining the accused with the iron hand they so freely wielded on peaceful protesters elsewhere, the cops were seen holding the accused by their shoulders and slowly walking them away from the scene.
After Hindu Raksha Dal chief Pinki Chaudhary bragged the attackers were his workers, the police took cognisance of the video and arrested four men.
Opposition leaders and young protesters alleged the delayed police action was an exception and not the rule.
“An illegal, unregistered ‘cultural organisation’ runs an illegitimate Vote Chor government that deploys its police – goons without nameplates – to brutalise citizens and cling to power,” wrote Congress leader Pawan Khera on X.
Personnel without nameplates beating young protesters and women after detaining them has been another feature of the clampdown on the protests against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Priyanshu Kushwaha of the RJD on Monday posted the picture of a posse of policemen without a single visible name tag,
“If you're planning to join the protest in the Connaught Place and Lutyens' area, then make sure to properly identify these uniformed thugs,” Kushwaha wrote in Hindi.
“Keep all the other uniforms aside. These are different people. None of them has a nameplate. After detaining them, these people are beating children and women. When someone tried to shoot a video of the beating right in front of me, one boy's mobile was first snatched, and then he was beaten until he deleted the video.
“I am an eyewitness. I am writing this with utmost responsibility. These people are coming with the intent to incite a civil war,” he wrote.
Another video doing the rounds of social media shows a man in a police uniform molesting AISA leader Neha Bora in full public view and then quickly moving aside, folding his hands in a namaste.
The Telegraph Online has not independently authenticated the veracity of the videos, but preliminary checks for AI have thrown up negative results.
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Congress leader Khera alleged that some people involved were using clothing associated with Muslim identity to misrepresent the protests.
“The RSS-BJP’s goal is to create communal division and use it to seize political power,” he declared.
Many journalists covering the protests in Delhi were detained by police despite displaying press identification cards, visuals on social media as well as published reports show. Several were also beaten up.
Some were seen showing press cards to officials as they were taken away.
Multiple protesters detained have alleged the police hit them mercilessly including on their private parts.
Meanwhile in Manipur
At this moment, the contrast with Manipur is also difficult to miss. As security forces restricted protests in Delhi, fresh violence in the northeast border state left at least nine people dead and around 14 houses burnt since Friday night.
A Naga civil society organisation has given armed groups 48 hours to return the severed head of a 52-year-old man allegedly killed in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district.
Seven outlawed armed groups in Manipur have called for a 12-hour shutdown on October 15 to observe “National Black Day” in protest against the state’s merger with the Indian Union in 1949.
Manipur has been in the grip of ethnic violence since May 2023.