Delhi Police detains student leaders for protesting against communal sloganeering at Jantar Mantar

New Delhi: Around 100 student activists and civil society members who gathered near Jantar Mantar on Tuesday to protest the alleged inflammatory sloganeering at a rally over the weekend were detained by the police as they tried to proceed towards Jantar Mantar.

Students activists from various organisations including All India Students Association (AISA), Students Federation of India (SFI) and Fraternity Movement were detained and later released after the intense protest organised outside Mandir Marg police station.

Afreen Fatima, National secretary of Fraternity Movement who was one among the detainees said that "Police silently watched Hindu supremacists raising genocidal slogans while we are being criminalised. This just shows the institutional state-backed Hindutva supremacy".

Prashant Tandon, one of the protesters, said, "That speech was very dangerous, not in tune with the Indian constitution and Indian tradition. Police must have immediately taken action on that. I heard that a few people were arrested today, three days after the video went viral." The protesters were carrying placards saying "zero-tolerance towards hate mongers".

Anupradha Singh, an advocate, said, "We have come to protest against the speech which was made against the Muslim community. We have come here to show that the country is secular and such hate-mongering should not be done."

Members of the Students' Federation of India (SFI), who also participated in the protest, said that the gathering was aimed at resisting the communal polarisation with a message of peace and secularism.

"The SFI strongly condemns the hypocritical character of the Delhi Police, wherein on the one hand gatherings by BJP and RSS organisations to fuel genocidal and communal sentiments are permitted, on the other, citizen's protest calling for peace and harmony are attacked," it said in a statement

N Sai Balaji, national president of All India Students' Association (AISA), claimed that the police stopped those who were protesting peacefully.

"The police did not detain those people who made the communal speech. They have stopped us who came here to protest peacefully against the hate speech. They arrested the accused after wide criticism on social media," he said.

The protesters were heading towards Jantar Mantar from Parliament Street around 4 pm when they were stopped and asked to disperse.

A PTI report quoted a senior police officer as saying that the protesters didn't have permission to hold demonstrations.

"When they reached Parliament Street, they were asked to disperse," the officer was quoted saying.

When police tried to detain them, the protesters started running leading to jostling and chaos, reports PTI. Those detained were taken to Mandir Marg police station in two buses, he was quoted saying.

Earlier, a video showing anti-Muslim slogans being raised during a protest at Jantar Mantar was widely circulated on social media, following which the Delhi Police registered a case in connection with the matter on Monday and arrested six people, including Supreme Court lawyer and former BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay.

A senior police officer named the other five persons as Deepak Singh, Vineet Kranti, Preet Singh, and Vinod Sharma (head of Sudarshan Vahini), Deepak Kumar, and Vinit Bajpai

A Delhi court sent the six accused in judicial custody for two days considering that their bail applications were pending.

The judge also directed that the applications moved by the accused -- Ashwini Upadhyay, Preet Singh, Deepak Singh, Deepak Kumar, Vinod Sharma and Vinit Bajpai - be placed before the court concerned on Wednesday.