New Delhi: Quasar Akhtar Khalil was having his first chai of the day with a biscuit, standing alongside some women constables at a shop on Leo Tolstoy Marg, when some cops in uniform suddenly closed in on him from both sides and grabbed his arms. Within seconds, he was on the verge of being bundled into a bus standing nearby. “ Hum kya kar rahe the? Biscuit kha rahe the ,” he pleaded with the cops before they let him go.
At one point on Leo Tolstoy Marg, nearly 50 to 60 cops were seen chasing three women protesters, who came from Moradabad, into a narrow lane.
“They surrounded us along the main road, pushed us into the bylanes and kept chasing us,” she said. Only a few managed to wriggle out and cover the protest,” she said. When Maninder’s father rang him up, Sharanpreet took the call and told him his son was in a “meeting”.
Across central Delhi Saturday, one needed to do little to invite police scrutiny. Armed with batons and in riot gear, cops turned their attention to anyone trying to inch towards Jantar Mantar, determined not to let the planned demonstration gather momentum as it had during June and July. Rifat slipped into an alley with fellow demonstrators, hoping that a larger crowd might offer some cover. When the police presence briefly eased, she and the rest of her friends settled down for a cup of tea, only to find themselves cornered again, this time by cops in a car. Rifat was eventually taken away in a bus with five other protesters whom police found hiding behind tea shops. The barricades were only the first layer of security. Along Connaught Place, Leo Tolstoy Marg, Bangla Sahib Gurdwara, Dilli Haat, Gole Market, INA Market and Minto Bridge, police pickets and buses stood ready to intercept anyone trying to assemble. Even stretches of otherwise deserted roads remained under watch well into the afternoon, with security personnel stationed at intersections and along lanes, scanning for people attempting to regroup. Other police personnel waited behind barricades or sat on footpaths, ready to spring into action. As the three women were bundled into a bus, one of them remarked, “ Aisa lag raha tha humein pakadne nahi, humari hifazat ke liye aaye hain . “Most of my colleagues from Punjab were detained outside Bangla Sahib itself. With Maninder’s phone still with her after a few hours, she could only hope he would eventually manage to call his own number from someone else’s phone.