In an extraordinary sitting on Sunday, the Supreme Court ordered the Delhi Police to step back from their overkill of detentions, movement restrictions, and transport and internet shutdowns to thwart the youth protesters who are agitating against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s continuance in office.
Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana directed the authorities to restore Metro and rail services and internet access and review the extensive barricading and restrictions on assembly in New Delhi.
These interim orders followed the unprecedented police action on Saturday when thousands were detained in the streets around the legally designated protest site Jantar Mantar and on roads and trains going to the national capital. Among the detainees were the leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka four former chief ministers, the social media influencer Dhruv Rathee and several prominent student protesters including Neha Bora. Reports said more than 30,000 policemen were mobilised for the operation, which observers say is an unprecedented and disproportionate response to a largely peaceful movement.
Dipke, Das and Ranka were released on Sunday morning after an executive magistrate imposed a condition on them to “maintain peace and good behaviour for one year”. It is an intriguing requirement to clamp down on three men who were detained even before they had set foot on the tarmac of the airport on Saturday. It is obviously an enabling measure, meant to give the authorities room to interpret “breach of peace” as broadly as it suits them. While signing the bond does not prohibit them from participating in demonstrations or making statements in future, it does give a handle for the police to step in whenever the young men build up a head of steam next. It remains for the magistrate to decide whether the bond has been violated, but it allows the police to drag them to court on a ruse.
The Cockroach Janata Party has said the agitation against Gyanesh Kumar will continue. In fact, the protests have become more dispersed. After demonstrators were prevented from reaching Jantar Mantar on Saturday, student and civil-society groups staged flash protests at several locations across Delhi on Sunday. Furthermore, Opposition leaders are poised to escalate them in the week ahead. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said INDIA bloc leaders would meet Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday to take up the issue of illegal detentions.
The potential results of overkill by the Delhi Police are obvious. As we saw in Sri Lanka in 2022 and Bangladesh in 2024, popular movements attain unstoppable momentum when police dish out high-handed treatment to peaceful protesters in full view of the nation. The cockroach movement is poised at that point. It has now begun to attract international attention. The Office of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner has expressed concern about how the Indian authorities have handled the peaceful protests over the past few months.
The Union Government’s truculent response to such attention is typical of authoritarian regimes in general and true to its own precedents, be it in Manipur or Kashmir. Instead of addressing the questions asked by the young protesters, it treats them as a law-and-order challenge, which is nothing but an invitation to nemesis.