ISLAMABAD: India's largest human rights and civil liberties organization, the People's Union for Civil Liberties, condemned the actions of the Delhi police, who assaulted students from the Cockroach Janta Party for attempting to set up a book stall near their protest site at Jantar Mantar last week.
In a press release issued on Wednesday, PUCL stated that police personnel attempted to dismantle the students' book stall and threw books onto the muddy road.
“The sight of books being flung to the ground at a peaceful protest is deeply disturbing and reflects a profound disregard for education, knowledge, and the democratic exchange of ideas,” the press release said.
According to the statement, the two students were “first taken to the police booth at Jantar Mantar, where Vishal was slapped multiple times by police personnel, before being taken to Parliament Street Police Station.”
Their mobile phones were seized, and they were required to furnish personal details, including their identification card and other identity documents, according to the statement.
“The students further informed PUCL Delhi that police personnel repeatedly abused them, referring to them as ‘gutter ke keede’ (gutter insects) and saying that they would be ‘cleaned’ (eliminated) because they were ‘spreading filth,’” the statement said.
The pair were also threatened with prolonged imprisonment in an apparent attempt to intimidate them with the prospect of prolonged criminal proceedings, the statement said.
Cockroach Janta Party founder, Abhijeet Dipke, accused the state police of disrespecting books on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Bhagat Singh, alleging that the authorities threw away their books and “assaulted students for setting up library.”
“These boys just wanted people to read books at the protest site. Why did the police assault them?” he said in a post on X on Thursday.
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