Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party government rejected the police’s request on Friday to declare nine stadiums in the capital as sub-jails to imprison farmers protesting the new agricultural laws.
After Delhi police, which reports to the central government, sought permission for taking over the stadiums in the morning, several top AAP leaders, including MP Sanjay Singh and MLAs Raghav Chadha, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Jarnail Singh spoke out against the move that would amount to criminalising what they called a peaceful protest.
A policeman wields a baton on another farmer at Narela in New Delhi on Friday. (PTI)
Farmers wait at the Singhu border. Picture by Prem Singh
The AAP said the farmers, mainly from Punjab, had reached Delhi after “much struggle”, facing tear-gas shells, water cannons and lathicharge by the police at various border points along their way to the national capital.
Following the remarks, Delhi home minister Satyendar Jain replied to the police through the state’s principal secretary (home) Bhupinder Singh Bhalla.
Jain’s letter to Delhi police said: “The demands of the farmers are well justified and the central government should immediately accede to their genuine demands. Throwing them into jails is no solution to the issue. The farmers’ protest was peaceful and non-violent. It is the constitutional right of every law-abiding Indian citizen of the country. The farmers who were leading a peaceful protest should not be locked in prisons, therefore, I have rejected the proposal of the Delhi police immediately.”
Although AAP is known for militant activism like the Arvind Kejriwal-led sit-ins outside Parliament in 2014 and inside the lieutenant governor’s residence Raj Niwas in 2018, the party had distanced itself from the protests against the Centre’s new citizenship regime from December to March.
A police barricade at the Singhu border. Picture by Prem Singh
The Delhi government has also sanctioned the prosecution of several students, suspended AAP municipal councillor Tahir Hussain and former Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan on terrorism charges for organising the protests that the police have linked to the communal riots in February in which 53 people were killed.
Later on Friday, eight AAP MLAs from Punjab, as well as Jarnail Singh — who is also the party’s state in-charge, courted arrest while trying to protest outside the Prime Minister’s residence on Lok Kalyan Marg.
Jarnail Singh said: “Till these three dark laws are not rolled back, the farmers will continue their protest, and the AAP stands in support with them.”
MLA Chadha said: “The right to protest is the hallmark of a free and democratic society, and the Arvind Kejriwal government will take every possible step to uphold this right.”
