Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association, said that repeatedly chasing the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has effectively made her a professional runner.
On Sunday, accompanied by around 90 fellow protesters, Bora and her group sprinted away from the police for the second consecutive day. They scaled barricades and covered the 1.5 km stretch from Ramakrishna Ashram to Connaught Place in about 20 minutes after finding the designated protest site on Jantar Mantar Road closed off. The group was eventually stopped by a police picket and taken to a community hall used as a detention centre in Daulatpur in southwest Delhi.
Student organisations staged a series of flash protests across the capital and even on the Yamuna after being denied access to the usual protest venue. Several senior Left leaders who joined the agitation were detained. CPM Rajya Sabha member John Brittas was taken to hospital after CRPF personnel grabbed him while he was speaking to the media and pinned him down inside a bus. He later reported swellings on his chest and arms and said he had been choking during the incident. Adarsh M. Saji, president of the Students’ Federation of India, was seen bleeding from his right eye with his shirt torn after being dragged away.
At least 12 journalists were also detained despite displaying identification tags; many were released by evening. Other groups, including members of the National Students’ Union of India and CPI leaders, faced similar police action while attempting protests near Parliament or en route to Jantar Mantar.
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Bora described how her group pushed aside a single row of barricades at the starting point and kept running until they reached Connaught Place. She added that she is normally poor with directions and that the group continued moving while looking for a route toward the traditional protest site before being detained.
Brittas has written to the President and the Chief Justice of India seeking a court-monitored inquiry by officers from outside the Delhi Police and CRPF. He has also raised a breach-of-privilege complaint. In his letter he questioned the protection available to ordinary citizens if an elected representative could be treated in this manner while peacefully speaking to the media.
The protests form part of a wider campaign demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner.