The role of the Delhi Police, during the anti-CAA protests, the Northeast Delhi Riots and the coronavirus-induced lockdown, is enough to send shivers down any law abiding citizen’s spine. The objective of the anti-CAA protests – writ large on posters, street art, social media posts, etc – was to ‘Save the Constitution of India’. There was nothing anti-national about the protests or the protestors (mostly students and Muslim women). It is these students and women, fighting as they were, to preserve the spirit of India’s Constitution and our democratic traditions, who have now been tagged as ‘anti-national’ and ‘gaddar’ – not under the law of the land, but by the whims of those in power.
For any discussion on the ongoing spate of arrests of students and activists accused by the Delhi Police of instigating and participating in the Northeast Delhi riots of January this year, there’s a chronology that needs to be made clear. As the anti-CAA protests raged, first came brutal police action against the protestors – the tear-gassing of peaceful protestors and the beating and manhandling of students and women. Then came the arson, looting and massacre of Muslims in Northeast Delhi – the worst-ever pogrom Delhi has witnessed since the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The attack was goaded on by the slogan of ‘Desh ke Gaddaron ko, Goli Maaron Saalon ko’ given in full public view by BJP’s Kapil Mishra and broadcast on TV news channels and social media platforms for days before the rioting actually began.
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