Months of simmering public anger over the electoral roll revision has erupted into daily protests demanding the removal of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the scrapping of the revision, which has struck 130 million people off the register, according to a report in The Guardian.
Over the weekend Delhi was effectively under lockdown, transformed into a militarised landscape of barricades, road closures and paramilitary forces. Ahead of a protest led by the Cockroach Janta party on Saturday, authorities cancelled 245 trains to Delhi, shut 45 metro stations, closed liquor shops, cut internet access in the heart of the city and placed activists under house arrest. The party's founders were removed from an Air India flight shortly after it landed at Delhi airport.
Opposition leaders were held for more than eight hours in police stations. Video footage showed students and activists being manhandled, beaten and dragged off the streets, and some journalists were also swept up in the detentions. A Supreme Court lawyer assisting those detained was carried away by police, his shirt torn. The crackdown extended to Mumbai, where Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, was removed by police to prevent him joining a local demonstration.
Political activist Yogendra Yadav, who was himself detained, said he had watched politics for four decades and had never witnessed this kind of preparation for a demonstration. "It was extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination." Despite what he described as "terror unleashed by the state", small groups staged flash protests in several areas of Delhi.
The crackdown followed similar police action against Congress party protests led by Rahul Gandhi, with images of police detaining him and his sister Priyanka circulating nationwide. On Monday, Delhi police denotified Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site, recommending three alternative locations. The ruling Bharatiya Janata party has defended its position, the report said.