Calling February 6 “black day”, human rights organisations Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) and Muslim Women’s Forum (WMF) have claimed that hundreds of Delhi cops pounced on protesters across the national capital after they assembled in solidarity with farmers, who had declared Chakka Jam to agitate against the government's three farm laws.
The national call given by the farmers’ unions was supported by trade unions, with large sections of citizens, women and men, youth and seniors, the statement said, adding, the Shaheedi Park was one of the many venues chosen in Delhi for the protest.
The statement said, the three hours of peaceful protest was “systematically thwarted”, first by arresting leaders starting at 5 am, and then by hundreds of police men and women who were sent to the Shaheedi Park to prevent over a 100 protesters from entering the Park. Other Delhi groups who had collected elsewhere in the city were also prevented from converging there.
“We condemn, denounce and deplore this throttling of the right to peaceful protest guaranteed to every Indian by the Constitution of India”, the statement said, quoting Maulana Azad, a top Gandhi aide and India’s first education minister, charged with sedition by the British, as stating, “History bears witness that whenever ruling powers take up arms against freedom and right, the police and court are always used as their most conventional and plausible weapons.”
It called the police clampdown, “a recurrent theme of this government”, reminiscent of the “the darkest days of imperialism”, demanding “immediate release of citizens who have been detained, arrested and charged.
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