TNN | Dec 24, 2012, 12.23 AM IST
What began as a peaceful protest on a misty Sunday morning gathered storm as the day progressed, ending with a massive clean-up operation by Delhi Police.NEW DELHI: A month before the Republic turns up at India Gate, with all its pomp and glory, people incensed by its attempt to silence their voice marched all over the place, making a bonfire of the wooden barricades that keep them off Rajpath. The mild ones who advocated peace and didn't wish to stoke the fire were soon running for cover as the heavy hand of the state descended on them with round after round of tear gas and lathicharges.
Soon, India Gate was resembling a battleground with fires burning here and there, water on the ground and smoke in the air. But blood and bruises didn't deter the protesters and some of them were back at India Gate by nightfall, setting the stage for another day of uncertainty and confrontation on Monday.
What began as a peaceful protest on a misty Sunday morning gathered storm as the day progressed, ending with a massive clean-up operation by Delhi Police with tear gas, water cannons and lathicharge. There was chaos, anger and confusion as around 10,000 protesters and several cops clashed repeatedly. Police lathicharged the crowd at least 10 times, injuring 65 people (many more didn't report at hospitals). And finally, around 5.30pm, they just went berserk - the policemen and the Rapid Action Force rained lathi blows on everyone coming in their way, including protesters, mediapersons and even families out for a walk.
At least 250 tear gas shells were lobbed and water cannons used as cops chased the protesters all the way from India Gate to ITO, Mandi House and Pragati Maidan. Delhi Police officers said the protest, which was peaceful on Saturday, had been hijacked by some political elements and hooligans who threw stones at regular intervals. Around 78 policemen were injured, including one constable identified as Subhash Tomar who is reported to be critical. Officials said he was beaten up by the violent protestors and is now on ventilator support.
The drama began early in the morning as the protesters began to assemble around 8am. The cops imposed prohibitory orders under section 144 of CrPC in all of New Delhi area and tried sending the protesters to Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan by dragging and pushing them into buses. However, many protesters successfully resisted this and the crowd steadily swelled. Parallel protests took place at 10 Janpath and Jantar Mantar. Even as Metro stations were closed down and barricades put up, people continued to pour into India Gate by walking long distances.
The cops had blocked all access routes early in the morning but there was no stopping the people. Unable to deal with a growing crowd that repeatedly made attempts to breach security, the cops fired tear gas and lathicharged the protesters repeatedly even as the agitators vandalised public property. The protesters were also lathicharged at Jantar Mantar, Rail Bhawan and Mansingh Road.
While a group of JNU students marched into India Gate from Nizamuddin around 11am, other groups made their way in from Ashoka Road. A large group of protesters blocked all traffic on the India Gate C-hexagon near Hyderabad House until cops removed them. Some rowdy elements in this group jumped on top of a police vehicle, breaking the windows and hammering the bonnet with sticks, even as others pleaded with them to stop, horrified. Some protesters gheraoed MP Sandeep Dikshit's car and chased him before he was escorted into the barricaded area of Rajpath.
A few protesters from the youth wing of left parties also tried making their way to Rashtrapati Bhavan through Rafi Marg. Around 200 youngsters, along with Brinda Karat, were forcefully pushed back near Rail Bhavan when the cops used their lathis and sprayed water to disperse the protesters around 12.30pm. But this did not deter the crowds. Women rights group like National Federation of India Women tried yet again to breach security leading to a second lathicharge within an hour.
"They think they will remove us from here but we will not go," said Sheela from Trilokpuri, who along with other women sat on the road causing the traffic to come to a standstill. After this these protesters started to make their way to Ashoka Road which was already reeling under a riot-like situation.
The violence sharply escalated around 5.15pm, with the protesters pelting stones at the police and burning barricades and machans. A Delhi Doordarshan SX4 vehicle was turned over and damaged by an angry mob. Around 5.30pm, Delhi Police ordered a lathicharge and evacuation of people from India Gate.
For the next one hour, the police went on the rampage, hitting anyone in sight, lobbing more than 200 tear gas shells and using water cannons. The protesters, who moved to the roads connecting the India Gate circle, damaged more than 50 vehicles, including 12 DTC buses, and set many vehicles, including a dozen PCR vans and some private vehicles, on fire. Even moving buses with passengers inside were pelted with stones.
Minutes before the lathicharge, special commissioner of police (law and order) Dharmendra Kumar blamed 'hooligans' for the violence, claiming that unruly elements had 'hijacked' the peaceful demonstration. Delhi Police in its report to the Union home ministry said that some 'vested interests' had joined the protesters and were instigating them.
Kumar disclosed that a former chief justice of India will constitute the commission of inquiry which will go into the gangrape incident, lapses by the police and measures to be taken to ensure safety of women in Delhi and other parts of the country.
Kumar also said that if the protesters remained peaceful, the police was willing to take a delegation to the home minister. "What is the purpose of this lawlessness? People should calm down and allow police to work," he added.
Times View
Please, let's give peace a chance
People have the right to protest peacefully in a democracy. This differentiates countries like India from totalitarian regimes like China. However, the way the police have handled the protests in Delhi in the last two days has shown that both the police and government are clueless as to how to deal with spontaneous protests. Instead of recognising what is bringing our children, young girls and boys, to the wind-swept lawns of India Gate, instead of gauging the depth of their anguish born of a horrendous rape that makes the country hang its head in shame, our police and administrators are dealing with the protestors as they would with hired crowds often brought by vested political interests to create mischief.
Sadly, this flawed way of dealing with the protests has created a deep sense of frustration among those protesting, a frustration that is beginning to be expressed in a disturbing resort to violence. It seems unruly elements are now sensing the possibility of exploiting the situation to foment trouble. Any violence will defeat the very purpose why Nirbhaya (the symbolic name TOI has given the courageous girl) is battling for her life: to ensure that she, and others like her, get justice and such violent crimes are not allowed to happen again.
We must recognize the context in which this protest may be going out of control. The police have been guilty of undue use of force on protesters in a bid to get them out of the area around Vijay Chowk. They are being lathicharged, tear-gassed, hit with water cannons, and section 144 has been imposed - the standard operating procedure for dealing with crowds. Are the police to blame for this? Yes, but only partly. This is because they are mandated to prevent unscheduled protestors from climbing Raisina Hill and reaching Rashtrapati Bhavan to convey their anguish to the President. When MPs march as a body to give the President a memorandum of demand, the police are informed in advance and they let the MPs through. But they are at a loss when things don't go by the book and representatives of a spontaneous movement seek to do the same.
This is where political intervention and wisdom are required. Senior government leaders should tell the police to negotiate with the protestors for a manageable group of representatives to go and meet the President. Better still, the leaders should do it themselves. As public anger grew in the days after the rape, not one of them came to talk to the young girls and boys. So what if they had faced some anger? If a brave leader - say, Rahul Gandhi, who is said to be a youth icon - had reached the spot, megaphone in hand, and told the protestors that he shared the same anguish, the same anger and had the same determination to ensure zero tolerance for any kind of misbehaviour towards women, the situation might have been defused by now. Instead, the situation is now in danger of descending into violence.
But it is not - as some are saying - because political parties have joined the protests (who would channelize popular anger in a democracy if not organised political outfits?). The real reason is that the protestors feel they are banging their heads against a wall. There is no one to listen to them. The government has failed to recognise that these protests are signs of the people's resolve to not remain mute spectators to administrative apathy and poor governance. This is not the first time that the government and the police have been panicked into hasty action on protesters. Baba Ramdev's rally at the Ramlila grounds earlier in the year saw a similarly knee-jerk reaction. Metro stations were also shut down when Arvind Kejriwal and others had called for a dharna at the PM's residence demanding the Jan Lokpal bill. It was the same on Sunday when four Metro stations were sealed and section 144 was imposed in the India Gate area.
In this case, as in the earlier ones, the protests were peaceful till things took an ugly turn on Sunday evening. Nobody was physically attacking anybody, public or private property was not being damaged, and there was no violence. A few young boys and girls throwing bottles or stones don't make a protest dangerous. So why the insistence on breaking it up and clearing the area? Often the police response is that no permission was sought for the protest. When protests are against police inaction, does it not seem strange that we must seek the permission of the police before protesting? Second, the notion of seeking permission might make sense when it is an organized protest, but where in the question of seeking permission when people spontaneously turn up to register their anger? Who is expected to seek permission? Our government and police must get used to the idea that in the era of social media many protests will be spontaneous and without clear leaders who can seek and get permission. The response cannot be to just put them down. As long as protests are peaceful, they must be allowed.
That said, the protestors must keep their protest peaceful and refrain from any violence against the police or damage to public property. They should not give the police any excuse to resort to violent crowd-control measures. They must show their anger constructively and bring to the authorities concrete and reasonable demands. TOI has repeatedly suggested an action plan for curbing crimes against women. On Sunday, we asked for this anger to be channelized constructively into specific demands. We repeat them here again:
* Create fast-track courts to deal with crimes against women;
* Ensure that the police collect evidence properly, and are sensitized to deal with victims of such crimes. Their performance should measured based on conviction rates;
* Create a safe environment for women by having zero tolerance of any kind of violence against them. In this the police as well as society as a whole have a role to play;
* Bring strong deterrence by changing the law to make chemical castration and life-term the punishment for rapes. For violent rapes, such as the one that has triggered these protests, the death penalty should be considered as a "rarest of rare" punishment.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Delhi-gang-rape-The-people-are-at-the-gate/articleshow/17735879.cms?prtpage=1
78 cops, 65 protesters hurt in clash
23 December 2012
NEW DELHI, 23 DEC: At least 78 policemen and 65 protesters sustained injuries in the clash that occurred between them after the demonstration to oppose the sensational gang-rape of a 23-year-old para-medical student, turned violent at India Gate today. A seriously injured constable is battling for life.
According to police, 78 policemen were injured in the stone pelting by hooligans who had joined the protesters in the adjoining area near India Gate.
“Joint Commissioner of Police (central), Taj Hassan, additional deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi), Sanjay Tyagi, deputy commissioner of police (outer), Bhola Shankar Jaiswal and additional commissioner of police (New Delhi), KC Dwivedi were among the injured policemen,” said the police. On the other hand, 65 protesters also sustained injuries in the clash with police. “The entire area around India Gate was completely cleared by 5.30 pm after using about 250 tear gas shells and a minor lathi charge,” said the officer.
Police said that the hooligans who were taking side of protestors, resorted to stone pelting. 12 DTC buses and equal number of PCR vans were also damaged in the day-long protest. One vehicle belonging to Delhi Doordarshan was also damaged.
“A constable identified as Subhash Tomar, who was posted with the Karawal Nagar police station (north-east), was found injured at Tilak Marg and was shifted to Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital where he is critical and is put on ventilator,” said the police.
http://thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=436280&catid=35
UPRISING
MONDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2012 01:40
MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL / MOHD ASIM KHAN | NEW DELHI
Protest turns violent, many hurt, cop critical
Thousands of people, mainly youngsters, continued their protests against the gruesome gang-rape of the 23-year-old paramedical student sparking off clashes with police on Sunday. It was a cat-and-mouse game, with police chasing away protesters who came back with steely resolve to fight it out. The protest turned violent in the evening.
As per police report, 90 protesters and 78 cops were hurt in the melee. A constable, Subhash Tomar, who sustaining head injuries and had a cardiac arrest during the scuffle, is critical.
The Delhi Police claimed that hooligans and some political elements hijacked the peaceful protests. The police said the anti-social elements in the crowd damaged public property and attacked police personnel. The day’s protest also drew political activists, but most of the protesters had no particular affiliation.
Despite administration’s efforts to discourage people from reaching India Gate, the number of protesters swelled in the afternoon. The police had barricaded almost every road leading to Raisina Hill and 10 Janpath, and even pedestrians were not allowed to cross these barricades. Most of the roads leading to India Gate roundabout, called C-Hexagon, had been closed for vehicular traffic, but that did not deter the protesters from assembling at India Gate lawns.
The crowd braved cold weather and transport problems to turn up at India Gate. Their number surged dramatically after 1 pm. By 3 pm, more than 5,000 people had gathered at India Gate. They tried to break the barricades on Rajpath side to move towards Raisina Hill. The police lobbed teargas shells and, resorted to lathi-charge to chase away the unruly crowd. But the protesters returned and a few from the crowd pelted the police with stones.
In the scuffle, several persons from both sides were injured, some of them critically. An injured, named Ansar, resisted being taken away in an ambulance as he thought that it had been provided by the police. “Don't take me anywhere in this ambulance. This is being funded by police and Government,” he shouted as people packed him into an ambulance. “No, this is being provided by the taxpayers' money. It is our money,” said a person accompanying Ansar.
The agitated crowd breached the first layer of barricades on Rajpath and ransacked a Government vehicle parked nearby. The police resorted to water cannon to disperse the crowd but it had little effect. The tussle continued till 5 pm when a few companies of Rapid Action Force and other paramilitary force were deployed to control the situation. Joint Commissioner of Police, Central Range, Taj Hassan led the force charge at the crowd at 5.15pm. This time police were successful in dispersing the crowd.
Around 3.30 am, police evacuated a number of protesters from Raisina Hill, and 10 Janpath, where they had stayed put since Saturday night. The protesters, who spend a chilly night in the open area, were taken into a bus by police and were left in Bawana.
A team of protesters on Sunday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who promised a speedy action against the accused. A huge crowd had camped outside her 10 Janpath residence since Saturday night. To the surprise of many, she came out past midnight, sat with them and spoke for about 20 minutes.
On Sunday around 5 am, after evicting all the agitators, Delhi Police barricaded all roads leading to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and nearby Government offices and made a heavy bandobast at major points such as Raisina Hill, Rajpath, and Rajendra Prasad Road. Eight Metro stations near India Gate and Raisina Hill were closed to contain the agitation. But few hours after police evacuated demonstrators from Raisina Hill and Sonia Gandhi's residence, around 8 am, high drama was again witnessed at India Gate when protesters resisted police attempts to detain them for defying prohibitory orders.
Around 9 am, the protesters gathered near Amar Jawan Jyoti and at the same time Delhi Police announced to vacate the location as the New Delhi district area was under Section 144 of CrPC (prohibiting the assembly of protestors). They asked protesters to stage demonstrations either at Jantar Mantar or Ramlila Maidan but the protesters remained defiant and then police forcibly removed them from the spot. Some girls punctured the tyres of the police vehicles, while a group of girls lay down in front of the vehicles. Later, police and paramilitary personnel resorted to water cannon and lathi-charge. But seeing the steely resolve of the agitators, police allowed protest at India Gate area. Around 2.30 pm, protesters again starting pelting stones at police, and police retorted with tear-gas shells water cannons. Police lobbed about 250 tear-gas shells to disperse the crowd. 12 DTC and 12 PCR vans were damaged during the protest.
Police said one additional DCP, an ACP and a constable were seriously injured in the violence. A Delhi police constable, Subhash Tomar, suffered a cardiac arrest during the clash with the protesters. As per doctors, Tomar is critical. Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Dharmendra Kumar blamed hooligans for the violence during protests and said unruly elements have hijacked peaceful demonstrations.
Kumar urged all protesters to head home as security forces cleared streets after streets once darkness set in. “We want people to go home so that we can isolate the hooligans,” he said.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/117687-uprising.html
PM ‘situation’ root cause of all maladies: Advani
MONDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2012 01:15
PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | NEW DELHI
Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Sunday said the root cause of all maladies afflicting the country today is weakening of the office of the Prime Minister.
Talking about the content of a recent book, Advani said on his blog that it was now a common knowledge that Prime Minister, who is the prime executive in a democratic establishment, is not the topmost authority in the country’s hierarchy.
“India is a vast country with myriads of problems. The constitution and the law empower the Government with all the authority needed to administer the country effectively. In all democracies the prime executive in a democratic establishment is the Prime Minister. However, as everyone in the country knows, the topmost person in India’s hierarchy today is not the Prime Minister, but the Congress President. It is this situation which is at the root of most maladies that afflict the country these days,” Advani said on his blog.
Advani’s remarks come against the background of wide- spread agitation and outrage over the brutal rape and torture of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus in Delhi last week. The former Deputy Prime Minister on Saturday had expressed concern over police action against young students protesting at Raisina Hill and India Gate. He has also earlier accused the Government of being “indecisive and incompetent.”
http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/117666-pm-situation-root-cause-of-all-maladies-advani.html
Delhi gang-rape protesters defy efforts to silence outrage
Published: Monday, Dec 24, 2012, 0:44 IST
Place: New Delhi | Agency: Reuters
No discrimination: Police charge at protesters in New Delhi on Sunday.
DNA
The government moved on Sunday to stamp out protests that have swelled in New Delhi since the gang-rape of a young woman, banning gatherings of more than five people, but still thousands poured into the heart of the capital to vent their anger.
Police used tear gas and batons to hold crowds back from marching on the president's palace, just as they did the day before. About 30 to 35 people, including a few policemen, were being treated at a nearby hospital for injuries, two doctors said.
The 23-year-old victim of the December 16 attack, who was beaten, raped for almost an hour and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi, was still in a critical condition on respiratory support but responding to treatment, doctors said.
Six men have been arrested for the assault.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.
Most sexual assaults go unreported and unremarked, but the brutality of last week's attack triggered the biggest protests in the capital since mid-2011 demonstrations against corruption that rocked the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The protesters, predominantly college students but also housewives and even children, are demanding more steps from the authorities to ensure safety for women - particularly better policing - and some want the death penalty for the accused.
Several metro stations were closed and many roads into the administrative centre of the city were barricaded on Sunday to prevent a build-up of protesters.
However, by late afternoon the crowd around the India Gate monument - normally a festive place on a Sunday - had swollen to several thousand.
Scuffles broke out near government buildings, where youths shouted "Down with Delhi police!" and threw bottles at the forces holding them back. Angry protesters later overturned a vehicle and seized police vans.
GANDHI GETS FLAK
Since last week's rape, the authorities have promised better police patrolling to ensure safety for women returning from work and entertainment districts, the installation of GPS on public transport vehicles, more buses at night, and fast-track courts for swift verdicts on cases of rape and sexual assault.
However, that has not been enough to placate protesters in New Delhi and other cities across the country, where the past week began with peaceful candle-light vigils and ended with a spasm of violence in the capital.
Bowing to public pressure, Sonia Gandhi, chief of the ruling Congress party, emerged from her residence after midnight to talk to protesters. She went out again on Sunday with her son, Rahul Gandhi, who is seen as a future prime minister.
"She assured us of justice," said one of the students who met the Gandhis.
Some others, though, shouted "Down with Sonia Gandhi!" and accused politicians of indifference to the plight of ordinary citizens.
"It's time she (Sonia Gandhi) takes the bull by the horns and make this country safe for women. Be it better policing or strongly penalizing offenders," said Rukmani Dutta, a final-year political science student at Delhi University.
Protesters said they would continue to demonstrate until they get firm assurances from the government.
"Until and unless the government understands the pulse of the people and imposes strict action against these criminals, we will not relent," said Sherry Kaur, a student at Indraprastha University, also in New Delhi.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_delhi-gang-rape-protesters-defy-efforts-to-silence-outrage_1781086