Neha Bora, President of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), is marching from India Gate to Jantar Mantar on Sunday with political analyst Yogendra Yadav and other left-wing leaders. They are staging a 'Citizen’s March' against the Delhi Police, citing the alleged sexual assault of a female journalist by a senior officer. Bora posted on X, 'From Streets to Protests, Women are not safe,' calling for a rise against Gyanesh Kumar and the police force. The protest is a direct response to the failure of authorities to register an FIR against the accused officer, despite hundreds of journalists sitting in protest for hours outside the Parliament Street police station on Saturday night. The atmosphere is tense. Bora specifically named the officer, demanding his resignation and accountability for the misconduct.
Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, amplified the outrage by directing questions at Union Home Minister Amit Shah. 'Amit Shah ji, where are you? You have to answer for this,' Gandhi wrote on X, noting that the Delhi Police falls under the Ministry of Home Affairs. He alleged that hundreds of people were detained at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, with specific claims of misconduct against women protesters and journalists having their cameras snatched. Gandhi argued that a government fearing to register a single woman's complaint cannot claim to be protective of citizens. He described women and students across Delhi as being 'gripped by fear,' highlighting the irony of the police—whose duty is protection—being the perpetrators of the alleged violence.
The unrest follows the detention of AISA members, including Bora, and senior advocates Prashant Bhushan and Kapil Sibal during protests against CEC Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday. Delhi Police registered three FIRs related to the October 2 protests: two at the Parliament Street (Sansad Marg) Police Station and one at Connaught Place. The underlying tension stems from a report by The Indian Express stating that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi raised objections on at least 14 occasions over ten months regarding electoral roll decisions. The Election Commission rejected these claims of institutional dissent, labeling them as standard administrative queries and maintaining that all decisions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) schedule were unanimous. The police crackdown on these previous protests has now morphed into a broader crisis of trust regarding women's safety and police accountability in the capital.