Hundreds of students, civil society members and Opposition leaders and supporters turned up at Jantar Mantar on Friday evening to demonstrate against the Hathras atrocity, fashioning the largest protest gathering in Delhi since the agitation against the new citizenship regime last winter.

Several smaller protests had taken place in the capital since a 19-year-old Dalit girl died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday, 15 days after being allegedly gang-raped and brutalised in a village in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh.

A protester holds up a poster. PTI

Over the past two days, the police had broken up these demonstrations and booked scores of participants for violating the lockdown.

A planned candlelight vigil at India Gate on Friday evening was shifted to the protest plaza of Jantar Mantar after the police tweeted on Thursday night that demonstrations would not be allowed at the original venue.

The New Delhi deputy commissioner of police’s office also tweeted that only 100 protesters would be allowed at Jantar Mantar with prior permission. The three Metro stations around the area were shut on Friday evening.

But a sea of protesters turned up after Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress publicly supported the programme, promoted on Twitter by student groups, actor Swara Bhasker and the Independent MLA from Gujarat, Jignesh Mevani.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, flanked by his ministers and MLAs, spoke at the protest. “Several actions have led people to believe that the culprits are being shielded.... At this point, all that the family need is peace and they should be free to meet whoever they want to. There should be no politics on the matter,” he said.

Bhim Army chief Chandrasekhar Azad speaks. Picture by Prem Singh

According to the victim’s family, the police took eight days to invoke the charge of gang rape and five days to arrest the suspects. The force is also accused of denying the girl the best possible treatment and then hijacking her body from the hospital and burning it after locking her family at their home.

On Friday, her father said the police had confined the family at their home, taken away their phones and thrashed him when he sought to step out.

Bhasker, who led the crowd in sloganeering, said: “The cases of rape in Hathras and Balrampur (in Uttar Pradesh, where another woman was gang-raped and murdered this week) have raised questions over the conduct of the authorities. Families have said the first information reports were not registered correctly. The CM must step down.”

Among those at the protest site were Mevani, Bhasker, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad and Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav.

“Every day in India, four women are raped but who cares? And this includes the male-dominated Dalit movement too,” Mevani, a Dalit activist, told The Telegraph. So, he said, it’s “good and required” that people voice their protest against the Hathras atrocity.

“I hope Mr (Narendra) Modi also opens his mouth…. The Hathras incident is so terrible that there is no option but to fight it out,” he said.

A Youth Congress activist dressed as Mahatma Gandhi. PTI

Most television news channels, however, had minimal coverage of the protest. Pro-government Twitter handles busied themselves tweeting about a much smaller hunger strike at the same venue by people who allege that actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death in June was murder, not suicide.

BJP politician Kapil Mishra, accused of instigating the February riots that killed 53 people, condemned the protest against the Hathras incident saying the spearheads were “the same people who spread lies about the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act)”.

“Honestly, the protesters are more afraid of the virus than of the police,” said Prasenjeet Kumar, secretary of the Delhi unit of CPIML Liberation’s All India Students’ Association, who has been protesting since Wednesday and has been detained once by the police.

“In all these months, we complied with the government’s directives, but the ban on protests is being used to silence dissent itself,” he told this newspaper.

Swara Bhasker at the protest. PTI

“We are protesting, even at the risk of facing police cases, in the hope that this struggle will bring together the movements for both social justice and gender justice. We have several women members out protesting today, including some who are facing police cases for the anti-CAA protests. They may criminalise our protests, but silence on heinous and feudal crimes like what happened in Hathras is criminal.”

Youth Congress members dressed as Mahatma Gandhi marched on the road carrying lighted candles.

Sitaram Yechury and other leaders at the protest. Picture by Prem Singh

“They (authorities) should understand that Dalit lives matter,” CPI general secretary D. Raja said. “India cannot continue like this. The whole country is agitating for human rights and dignity. Adityanath cannot continue as CM.”

Raja added: “I appeal to the President (Ram Nath Kovind), who is from UP. He must intervene. He knows what’s happening. I can’t expect (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi to intervene and set things right.”

Arvind Kejriwal at the protest. PTI

Yechury, Azad and Yadav too demanded Adityanath’s resignation over the crime, alleged cover-up attempt, forcible burning of the body and police crackdown on the victim’s family and the village that has seen journalists being roughed up.

Police later filed an FIR against the protesters under sections of the penal code, Epidemic Act, and Disaster Management Act, cumulatively punishable with up to 18 months in jail.

Elsewhere in Delhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended a prayer meeting for the victim at the Maharishi Valmiki temple.

Priyanka Gandhi attends a prayer meet for the victim at Maharishi Valmiki temple on Friday. Picture by Prem Singh

The victim’s community of Valmiki Dalits worship the Maharishi, considered the author of the original Sanskrit Ramayan. Mahatma Gandhi lived in a room at the temple from 1946 to 1947.

“We will ensure justice for our sister. We won’t sit quietly till she gets justice,” Priyanka said.

“The government did not help at all. Her family is feeling helpless. We will put political pressure on the government. She wasn’t even given a cremation following Hindu customs.”