As security personnel detained protesters at RK Ashram Marg on Sunday afternoon, a woman wearing a mask, red cloth around her neck and black-tinted glasses was mistaken for AISA national president Neha, triggering a media frenzy.
No AISA protester who arrived for the protest was picked up one by one, each hauled away by four to five police personnel and pushed into waiting buses. A fresh commotion erupted behind them.
Suddenly, cameras swung around. Mediapersons shouted the breaking news - "Neha has been detained." But police said they were taking her away.
As protesters jostled with the police around the woman, she was eventually pushed towards Jantar Mantar, turned her head, possibly to face the cameras, good sense prevailed apart the commotion, she was Neha but a look-alike. A reel on her Instagram account soon revealed that she was a cheerleader for Connaught Place, running alongside AISA supporters as their protest gathered.
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Near Blue Tokai, Neha was detained, someone said. As events unfolded, there was confusion, a woman was detained, at one point, this time with the police having found the right person.
In Connaught Place, CRPF personnel were deployed and a fleet of orange low-floor buses had taken over A Block by 5:30 pm. There were more policemen than men and women at Tiranga rally near Gate 7 of Rajiv Chowk Metro Station.
Shortly after 6 pm, police said a woman social worker was among the first to be taken away, followed by others, including a lawyer and her friend. "I am cooperating," the lawyer said as police personnel dragged her into a bus, her bag in a white kurti and black mask dragged into a bus.
Inside another bus, a woman shouted to mediapersons: “They cannot detain us peacefully. They should have a Court order. I do not know why I am being detained or where I am being taken to.”
At 6:40 pm, as a bus began to pull away, around 10 protesters, including SFI activists, former AISA students' union president and SFI member Aishe Ghosh and a lawyer climbed onto the front and back, climbed onto the front of the bus, forming a human chain to clear the path.
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From inside the bus, a protester, holding back outside her wish for just walking towards streets. For Khushi (26), who had been protesting to watch the protests out of fear, the scenes were difficult to watch. "I was not even protesting. This time I made up my mind to be here, to see these protests. This time it made up my mind to be here. But the way police are manhandling women protesters, especially women after 6 pm, in horrendous. The way they are pushing them and dragging them without a woman constable in sight, shameful," she said.
The police later clarified: peaceful protest in areas where Section 163 is not in force will be allowed. But Sunday showed that even the act of reaching protest site has become a protest.
Tags: #RK AshramMarg #ConnaughtPlace #AISA #Neha #Detention #Section163 #Journalists #DelhiPolice #FlashProtest #JantarMantar