Ahmedabad feels ripples of Delhi CJP protest

The first lot of protesters, who had gathered to also demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, were detained around 6 pm.

As police personnel from Zone-7, which encompasses eight police stations, led by Sector-1 Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Niraj Kumar Badgujar, attempted to detain and send people to Vejalpur police station, the protesters began splintering into groups even as more and more people joined them later.

Civil rights activist Swati Goswami, who helped coordinate the protest, was among the first to be detained at 6:02 pm.

Speaking to The Indian Express from outside the Vejalpur police station after being released, she said: “There have been more than 22 paper leaks in Gujarat alone. Thousands of government schools have been shut down, forcing lakhs of children out of schools due to unaffordable private education. Even higher education is with the right-wing and discourages healthy discourse on human and civil rights. We demand action, accountability, reforms, answers and resignations. The youth of Gujarat will not repeat the mistakes of their older generations.”

While several protestors, both men and women, were forced into the police vehicles after two and a half hours of agitation, others went willingly and were deposited at police stations, where the slogans continued till they were set free after 9 pm.

JCP Badgujar said, “The protesters do not have police permission, and we have detained more than 150 people.”

The Indian Express witnessed the face-off between one such splinter group of about 80-odd youths and policemen stationed outside Gandhigram railway station, which is close to the Ashram Road site where the main protest was taking place.

This moving group walked into the sidelanes and clustered on the parallel road filled with offices and residences and began sloganeering as police vehicles and personnel with lathis followed them on foot.

The slogans, which began with “Vande Mataram” and “Inquilab Zindabad”, soon reached “Jab jab Modi darta hai, police ko aage karta hai” in defiance of the uniformed men who had followed them into the lanes. This was followed by the primary chant of the protest: “Dharmendra Pradhan istifaa do.”

An elderly resident came out of his house and inquired about the purpose of the kerfuffle. When informed of the reason for the protest, he nodded gravely but offered no opinion on it.

Being followed by police, the splinter group, meanwhile, took a turn that would have taken them to the main artery of Ashram Road. However, they saw that the exit, which was their original protest site, had been surrounded by the police, cutting them off.

Most of the youth in this group appeared to be young college students. Many had covered their faces with cloth or a clinical mask and refrained from taking any names. They were hesitant to even speak about their protest. A young woman said, “The police have been detaining those who are shouting the loudest, and many people were picked up from the main road.”

In spite of the obvious fear on some faces, these students took part in what was perhaps the largest urban protest held in Ahmedabad in a long time. Two young men, one from a university in Ahmedabad and another from Pune, said, “A policeman approached and told me that he was keeping me in his sights, and even told me to go with him to the police station…”

As the police jeeps turned left onto the road perpendicular to Ashram Road, trapping this splinter protestor group between two police units, there were a few moments of panic as many believed that a lathi-charge was imminent. But this was a false alarm. Senior police officials remained calm. The protesters were trapped.

However, within half an hour, this splinter group vanished into the general populace in groups of two or three. Later, a larger group was back on the main road for one last show of strength as the police brought in several vans to detain them.

The police personnel, many of them with body cameras, were hard-pressed to identify protesters from pedestrians, passersby and office-goers who stood at tea stalls. Some journalists were also mistakenly hoarded towards the police vehicles before being correctly identified.