MUMBAI: The state’s clampdown on youth-led protests continues, with the Mumbai Police serving a notice on 106 tribal students after they were booked for attempting to stage an agitation at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on October 25.
They were demanding the resignation of the Maharashtra tribal development minister and removal of key bureaucrats for reasons ranging from safety concerns, to the lack of basic facilities in government-run residential schools, abysmal hostels facilities, and the abolition of centralised kitchens. The Shivai Park police, however, barred the protestors from assembling at the park and booked those who allegedly resisted attempts to disperse them as Shivaji Park is not a designated protest site. Mild force was exercised and they were taken into custody, the FIR states.
The youth were booked for violating prohibitory orders under Section 37(3) of the Maharashtra Police Act, and Section 189(2) for unlawful assembly of the BNS, 2023. These students have now been served notice under Section 35(3) of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), a procedural requirement that instructs them to appear before the police for an inquiry within 14 days and to appear before the court, if needed. Police have registered a single First Information Report (FIR) to book all 106 students.
It states that when police instructed the protestors to disperse and leave the venue, they “argued and engaged in a scuffle/push-and-pull” with the police. The notice, served on them on Friday, states that “this legal complaint is filed on behalf of the State against the aforementioned persons under Section 189(2) unlawful assembly of the BNS, 2023, and various sections of the Maharashtra Police Act, 1951”. When tribal students, rallying under the Gen Z Jan Akrosh Morcha, attempted to protest on Sunday, they were met with the same response from the police.
