‘Lone ranger’ atop bus, elderly inside them: 100 detained at Ahmedabad protest over SIR

ON SATURDAY evening – just 24 hours before the beginning of Navratri – the Ahmedabad Police deployed around 250 personnel on Ashram Road where several activists, social workers and students protested against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in solidarity with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) agitation in Delhi.

At least 100 people, including 86-year old author-activist Prakash N Shah, were detained. The activists were picked up at the site or on the way and taken to various police stations including at Ellisbridge, Vasna and Vejalpur a few minutes after the protest began at 6:30 pm outside the MJ Library. This is the same place that had seen a much larger CJP protest on July 20 on the issue of NEET and other exam paper leaks across the country that led to the resignation of senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister.

In spite of the police saturating the area, cordoning off the inside roads that had caused groups to splinter off the last time, protesters, often in small groups, kept turning up till 8 pm and the police had to cover an area of over 100 metres on Ashram Road, one of the major arteries of Ahmedabad City, to nab protesters and put them in patrol vehicles and buses.

A singular event that captured the attention of not just the police, but also commuters driving home was a protester clad in black, who, while the police were busy shoving other protesters inside a bus, climbed atop it and began shouting slogans. Senior police officers asked personnel to climb up behind him and they managed to get him back down and detained him.

The protesters faced a hard time gathering at the site that had been made public in advance, as several activists and even local opposition leaders were allegedly placed under detention well in advance on Saturday, apart from those who had been detained in their homes and various police stations on Thursday and Friday, to stop them from travelling to Delhi and participate in the protest at Jantar Mantar.

DCP (Zone-7) Shivam Varma confirmed to The Indian Express that the protest had not received police permission. The permission application was in the name of sarpanch Satyesha Leuva, a national vice president of the Students Federation of India (SFI), who was allegedly detained at the home of a relative on Thursday itself and accompanied by police personnel when she travelled to Ahmedabad to give her statement regarding the protest permission at Ellisbridge police station on Friday. She was detained at Vasna police station from the protest site on Saturday.

While they were detained at various police stations, some of the protesters alleged that several Instagram handles including those linked to the Students Youth Collective of Ahmedabad (SYCA) as well as those of several activists had been “banned in India”.

Story continues below this ad

There were several elderly people also who joined the protest and were detained by the police. Activist Swati Goswami, one of the organisers of the protest, claimed, “This would have been the biggest urban protest had 100 vehicles and a large number of cops not dismantled the jan andolan before we all could gather. An 87-year-old man is among those detained with us.”

On the reason for the protest, Goswami referred to The Indian Express reportage about Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objecting on record multiple times to SIR-related decisions taken without their knowledge and to glaring gaps in processes.

She claimed, “Gujarat recorded one of the highest number of voter deletions under Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Many have been deprived of basic state services due to SIR.”

At Vejalpur police station, The Indian Express spoke to advocate Subodh Kumud, who was among the first batch of protestors to be detained. He said, “We carried out a peaceful protest. However, we were denied permission… With the police claiming that there would be a law and order or traffic situation.”

Story continues below this ad

Kumud alleged, “Students who are trying to exercise their right to protest are not being allowed to do so.”

Noorjahan Diwan, Congress councillor in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) from Maktampura ward, who was at Vejalpur police station, claimed that she had been detained by the police at 4 pm on Saturday and her phone taken from her, which is why she could not attend the protest.

On the organisation of the protest, Goswami said, “Students, youth, and concerned citizens came together in Ahmedabad to protest against SIR. Organisations including the Student and Youth Collective Ahmedabad (SYCA), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Youth Front (DYF), Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch (RDAM), Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP), and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) are joining hands to call for this protest.”