New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Friday said they have registered four more first information reports (FIRs) in connection with the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) protests-related violence between Monday and Wednesday that left at least 129 security personnel and over 60 protesters injured, taking the total number of FIRs registered in the clashes to 15.
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The development comes on the day when the CJP claimed that the government “in principle” have assured of no legal action against peaceful protesters.
Refusing to share sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) under which the four FIRs were registered, the police said that they were the same as the ones levelled in previous ones, including that of rioting.
Senior police officers said their initial investigation into the “larger conspiracy” case revealed that the first alleged clash between protesters and police personnel occurred near Parliament’s “selfie point”, and subsequent violence erupted at Raisina Road, the Jantar Mantar sit-in demonstration site and on its adjoining roads.
The officers said they have focused their probe on all the people, including politicians, who used the main protest stage of Jantar Mantar to address the gatherings since Sunday evening till Monday morning, until the violent clashes broke out.
“Video recordings of all such speakers are being examined to ascertain who all delivered instigating speeches. A list of such speakers is being prepared, and they would be asked to join the probe and record their statement,” a senior police officer said.
Police said they will also probe the role of some social media influencers, who, they alleged, were “paid influencers”.
Another officer said that they will probe the “larger conspiracy”; they will also focus on the “funding and facilitation of logistical support” as “technical evidence”.
Another special cell officer said that investigators also suspect that similar instructions may have been given on Tuesday and Wednesday to allegedly target officials in uniform, including senior officers, if they are found alone or in smaller groups. Two assistant commissioners of police (ACPs) and an under-training ACP, and an inspector were among the 11 officials injured during Wednesday’s violence.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police on Thursday issued an order cancelling leaves of all police staff until further orders in view of the ongoing protests.
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So far, police said it has gathered over 15 TB of video footage from multiple sources – related to the violence that broke out between July 20 and 22.
The second officer said that the first FIR registered on Monday at the Parliament Street police station, which mentions the CJP protest and details the violence at Jantar Mantar and other areas, has been taken up by the Special Cell to probe “larger conspiracy “.
On the “larger conspiracy angle”, at least two officers from the special cell said they are focusing their probe on the suspected handlers who allegedly created multiple communications channels —both offline and online — issued an alleged “toolkit”, detailing the anti-social elements to keep their faces covered while visiting the protests site, carry pepper sprays, red chilli powders, and use sharp and blunt objects during their clashes with security personnel.
It’s pertinent to note that police are using the term “handlers” to refer to the persons they believe “orchestrated violence on Monday”.
The officers said their intelligence inputs gathered through various sources till Monday morning had suggested that between 10,000 and 15,000 organic and political-backing crowd would join the “Chalo Sansad” march. However, the gatherings increased by almost threefold, and they marched towards Parliament from various directions, in large and small groups, in such a well-planned way that a few of them managed to reach the Parliament’s premises.
“The sudden influx and the way a reasonable number of miscreants resorted to stone pelting and clashed with security personnel, attacking them with sticks, blunt and sharp objects, have given us reasons to believe that things happened according to the directions given by the handlers. Our probe is focused on identifying and arresting such attackers and their handlers, apart from exposing the entire propaganda,” said a police officer, who asked not to be identified.
