At least 2,000 people waving the Tricolour filled the inner circle of Connaught Place on Friday evening after police refused them permission to gather at Central Park, the centre of the business and retail district, closed the park itself for two days, and detained Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke hours before the Tiranga Yatra began, less than a week after police detained close to 7,000 people in a sweeping crackdown on the movement, which is demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar .
Police detain protesters during Tiranga Yatra
Around 2pm, a police team served him a notice at a friend’s house in Jhandewalan, and in a video released by the CJP an officer can be heard telling him about the march and warning that legal action could follow. Dipke signed the notice. Dipke was picked up in the afternoon. The crowd spanned generations. “This is the first time I’ve seen Connaught Place like this. I’ve never joined a protest and I’m not a CJP supporter but it’s good to see kids fighting for their rights. We have been hearing of irregularities in SIR for a long time now. “Why is there so much force? There’s more of them (police) than us. We are here only to show our pride in our national flag. Each time, they take me to a far off station with no help. But I will still come back. I want change. Police did not detain them.
Police detained 100-150 protesters and activists through the day, among them Dipke and All India Students’ Association (AISA) president Neha Bora , said a senior police officer at the Police Headquarters, more than 6,000 security personnel deployed across Lutyens’ Delhi. At 4.45pm, as he left the house, he was put into a police car and taken, CJP members said, to Jafarpur Kalan police station. I feel government should fix it now,” said Vinod Bajaj, 53, a businessman from Ghaziabad who said he had come only to watch. Suhana Khan, 22, a student, said she had been detained more than 13 times in the past month.
I want fair voting rights,” she said. A group of men who said they were shopkeepers staged a counter-protest, chanting “Modi, Modi, Modi ” and religious slogans, and some threatened to “end” the students’ protest. Delhi Police declared the gathering illegal on Thursday, and with the park shut by the New Delhi Municipal Council , the protesters marched on the road around it. Senior police officers said late on Friday that he was still in custody and would not say when he would be released.
