The streets around Delhi's Jantar Mantar were hit by a showdown between the Delhi Police and protesters demanding CEC Gyanesh Kumar's resignation on Friday, 25 September, days after the investigation by The Indian Express that raised serious questions on decisions related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of voter lists.
Several civil society groups, the All India Students’ Association, led by All India Students' Association President Neha Bora, Swaraj Party leader Yogendra Yadav, and activist Prashant Bhushan held a protest at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and a rollback of the SIR exercise.
The Indian Express report revealed how Gyanesh Kumar ignored several complaints by the other two Election Commisioners – an investigation that has triggered political reactions and debate over the functioning of the poll panel.
The Delhi Police had allegedly not given permission to protest, and Section 163 of the BNS (preventive order issued by the Magistrate in 'urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger') had been put in place around the protest site. Protesters were met with barricades and heavy police presence at the site. At 2:45 pm, a protester, carrying a banner calling for the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, was detained, following which the police barricaded and restricted entry towards Jantar Mantar.
"They have said they will detain us because we have not taken permission. Did you ask permission from us before they deleted our votes? When you ignored and broke democratic process, did you take our permission? Lakhs of voters have had their votes compromised, did you take permission from us for that? If no permission was taken to compromise democracy in the country, then we will only take permission from the Constitution, which we have. The police will have to comply to facilitate our protest because there is no greater concern for democracy than the loot of votes in our country. " Bora told The Quint.
Protesters began to demonstrate outside the barricades, when they were dragged and detained in buses at 3:20 pm, Yadav was detained by the police, alongisde Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation General Secretary Deepankar Bhattacharya, RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj, and Educationist Dr. Nandita Narrain. Bora was also detained later. CPI(ML)L has claimed that several buses carrying detained protesters were 'taken in four different directions' and the police denied information regarding where they were being taken.
At 5:00 pm, several female protesters from the Students' Federation of India were dragged and detained outside Ashoka Road.
Yadav claimed that he along with other detainees were driven around Delhi for 2 hours, and were not told where they were being taken.
"The job of the police is to detain criminals. But today the Delhi Police, CRPF and BSF were deployed to protect criminals."
Irfan, Special Corespondent for the The Wire, was also detained by the police, and reported that his microphone was snatched by the police and thrown.