Delhi Police have arrested at least 22 people on charges of obstructing their personnel and assaulting them, besides blocking the road during a protest at India Gate over rising air pollution levels in the national capital, an official said on Monday.
The police have registered two different FIRs, one at the Sansad Marg Police Station, another at the Kartavya Path Police Station, under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS, which has replaced the Indian Penal Code), including outraging the modesty of women.
The situation at the India Gate protest site had escalated on Sunday, as some demonstrators allegedly used pepper spray on police personnel while being removed from the scene, the official added.
“The situation then turned into a scuffle, and some protesters used pepper spray on our personnel, which is unusual and rare,” said the officer, adding that so far, Delhi Police had arrested at least 22 protesters. A police source said that the protesters were produced before the court on Monday.
“India Gate is not a designated protest site. The protesters were asked to leave. Jantar Mantar is the designated protest site, and anyone can demonstrate there after obtaining permission. On Sunday, the protesters blocked the C-Hexagon after jumping over police barricades. They sat on the road for over an hour, and even people stuck in the traffic jam were requesting them to clear the way,” said the police officer.
He added that when police teams asked the protesters to leave, they misbehaved, assaulted police personnel, and some even used pepper spray. Some cops were injured in the chaos.
“Many police personnel sustained injuries during the scuffle and were rushed to RML Hospital for treatment. We are investigating the entire matter and checking CCTV footage to identify everyone involved,” said the officer.
When asked about slogans allegedly raised by the protesters in support of Maoist leader Madvi Hidma, the Delhi Police officer said that they were investigating the matter.
Hidma, a top militant leader, was recently killed in Andhra Pradesh in a shootout with security forces. In videos available on social media, some of the Delhi air pollution protesters can be seen raising the slogan: “Madvi Hidma amar rahe (Madvi Hidma lives forever)!”
This has led to some social media speculation about whether the India Gate protest was about air pollution or was a general attempt at instigating an anti-establishment mood.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Coordination Committee for Clean Air said, in a statement, that the city’s air quality had become a “serious risk” to public health and alleged that the authorities had failed to address the root causes of pollution.
It further alleged that air quality had remained in the “severe” category, while the government relied on “cosmetic measures”, such as water sprinklers, cloud seeding and spraying near Air Quality Index (AQI) stations instead of finding long-term solutions to tackle the issue.
—With inputs from CtoI News Desk
