Vaibhav Chopkar, Maharashtra president of the All India Students Federation (AISF), said the monitoring began soon after he circulated a Google form to register students for the ‘Chalo Sansad’ rally on July 20. “I was coordinating with students from the Vidarbha region who wanted to travel to Delhi,” he said. “But after the registration process started, I began receiving calls from the local police station and even officers from the Anti-Naxal Squad, asking about my activities.”
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Jessani said they had not received the FIR copies even after submitting an application, and they had not been uploaded either. “Protestors were picked up even before the protests commenced,” she said. “The state government must stop this misuse of the law and intervene urgently to ensure that peaceful protests are not criminalised.”
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Advocate Lara Jessani, who is among the lawyers providing legal assistance to the students, alleged that the police monitoring was intended to discourage people from participating in protests. “The non-jurisdictional Zero FIR system was introduced to make it easier for citizens to register complaints at any police station,” she said. “However, it is now being used to harass protesters. Zero FIRs are being registered across the city and transferred to Shivaji Park police station.”
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AISF arranged for tickets for over 300 students who wanted to participate but could not afford the travel expenses. “At the protest site, the police were identifying people carrying AISF banners and badges,” he said. “Many of us were injured during the lathi charge, including some women AISF members.”
Office-bearers of Chhatra Bharati, another student organisation, had a similar experience. “On July 16, after we planned a march at Azad Maidan, I started getting calls from different police stations and unknown numbers,” said Dipti Shelar, a 25-year-old MSW graduate. “Almost every core committee member got such calls. We somehow managed to reach Masjid Bunder station, but the police detained us for the entire day. Even when we were later in Delhi for the Chalo Sansad march, Mumbai cops kept calling us and asking about our location.”
A student who joined the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Shivaji Park protest because a close friend had faced severe stress after the NEET paper leak, said that despite its peaceful nature, the police carted them to the police station, served notices and registered a complaint. Another student at the same rally, Sunita, who requested that only her first name be used, said she was detained at Mahim Police Station. “I was not even carrying a placard but I was still detained,” she said. Both students are worried about what the police complaint could mean for their future.
