he unprecedented crackdown on protesters by Delhi Police and paramilitary forces prompted many youth organisations to shift their demonstrations on Saturday (October 10) to other areas, including the Safdarjung flyover, Dilli Haat, Raj Ghat and various makeshift detention centres in north-west Delhi.
The central part of the national capital was sealed with heavy police deployment and barricading while metro stations, schools, colleges and markets remained closed. Despite the restrictions, hundreds of protesters continued their attempts to reach the planned protest site – Jantar Mantar – but were stopped by the police, detained, bundled into buses and driven to the city’s outskirts. The police, however, stopped the groups immediately and forced them to sit inside the buses. others sat on the road and lay down in front of the bus While some stood in front of it. The police pushed them away from the bus, and used batons to do so. Protesters noted the presence of a woman officer in civil clothes and several other police personnel without name tags. “Police were very aggressive, pulling our hands and legs and brutally manhandling us. “There were five-seven police officers in civil clothes who picked me up and threw me on the pavement. There was another person named Aragya whose leg got twisted while the police picked him up. He is now admitted to a private hospital in Rohini. Another police officer punched several people inside the bus.
Announcements were made from loudspeakers across central Delhi that Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) was in place and citizens should follow the directions of the police and maintain law and order. several protesters, including women and children, made their way in smaller groups of four or five While larger groups of 100-200 showed up under the banner of various youth organisations. I was not expecting this kind of aggression… the way they are detaining people and the amount of restrictions put in place,” said a 15-year-old who came to the national capital from Goa along with her younger brother and father. Around 1 p.m., members of Disha Students’ Organisation, Naujawan Bharat Sabha and Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India (RWPI) organised a protest at Raj Ghat with over 150 people turning up.
The protesters said many were detained, with the police using “excessive force and manhandling” them. The girls were pushed and pulled aggressively,” said Chiranshu, a member of RWPI.
