‘Police Ke Dum Pe Ye Sarkaar, Nahi Chalegi Ab Ki Baar’: Protests Rock Jantar Mantar Amid Detentions, Heavy Barricading
New Delhi: The Delhi Police at Jantar Mantar today (October 2) detained hundreds of protesters during the scheduled protest calling for the removal of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over his unilateral decisions in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Nearly all points of entry towards the main protest site at Jantar Mantar were barricaded along with heavy police deployment, riot control force, and Delhi police buses on standby to detain protesters.
Riot control vehicles equipped with multi-barrel tear gas launchers were parked near the LIC building on Janpath and Tolstoy road, blocking the routes leading to the protest site.
The police, while initially exercising restraint in the early hours of the protest at Tolstoy road, resorted to pushing protesters back from the site and dragged them away in buses. Videos of Delhi police manhandling protesters also emerged as the day progressed.
Police presence at the intersection of Janpath and Tolstoy road. Photo: Elisha Vermani.
‘Gyanesh Kumar should leave or he will be thrown out’
Hundreds of students, advocates and professors gathered near Jantar Mantar while chants of ‘Vote chor, Gaddi chodh’, ‘Narendra Modi murdabad’, ‘Gyanesh Kumar hai hai’ soared through the crowd.
“We are here to save democracy on Gandhi Jayanti. To Gyanesh Kumar, I would like to say, ‘Leave on your own or the public will throw you out, just like Dharmendra Pradhan. As far as the [mainstream] media is concerned, they called themselves the fourth pillar of democracy but they are actually the first pillar of dictatorship. We are just tired and disappointed and I wish the government would understand that students have better things to do than to just protest repeatedly against the system,” Arnav Gandhi, a B.Com hons student from University of Delhi told The Wire.
As more protesters gathered at the intersection of Tolstoy and Janpath road, the police began forcing them into buses. The police personnel present on ground refused to answer questions about where the detainees were being taken or how many had been detained. At least four rounds of detention had taken place at the site at the time of publishing this report.
Protester holding placard saying 'Thief Election Commission'. Photo: Elisha Vermani
Women protesters were also handled roughly by the Delhi Police. Female police personnel appeared to be few in number as the police moved through the crowd to detain protesters.
At intervals of 30-45 minutes, a large contingent of police personnel moved from the barricaded area towards the protesters and pushed them further back along Tolstoy road. After manually pushing the protesters back, Delhi Police buses were brought in to detain and disperse them.
‘They cannot take away our joy’
Protesters raised slogans like 'Jab jab Modi darta hai police ko aage karta hai', 'Ek samosa, do chai, Gyanesh Kumar hai hai’ and ‘Police ke dum pe ye sarkaar, Nahi chalegi ab ki baar’.
The frustration with the system and anger at the Modi government was palpable among the protesters. However, humour and satire, a key feature of the Gen Z protests that had rocked the national capital just a few months ago, were not missing at today’s protest.
Marketing strategist and creator, Utkarsh, who only goes by his first name, took to dancing at the protest site. “There’s so many things going wrong with the country, and the only way to fix these things is to vote. If that right is also taken away from us, then what will we do? It’s not a democracy anymore then.” On why he chose dancing as his way of protest, Utkarsh said,” They want us to be scared and upset. So by dancing we are showing them that they don’t have that power over us, that we are not afraid and they cannot take away our joy. They have an issue with everything protesters do, so we told the police ‘You’re anyway dancing on someone else’s instructions, might as well as dance with us’”.
A retired professor from Bihar University, Awadhesh Kumar, expressed his frustration with the authoritarian excesses of the Modi government and said, “Does the king choose who gets to vote in a democracy? Is this a monarchy or a democracy?”
“When Nepal and Bangladesh do not allow authoritarianism for too long then India is the country of Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhagat Singh and Gandhi, how can we allow this? Protests are the beauty of democracy, they make it stronger, but this Manuvadi, patriarchal and fascist government cannot tolerate protests,” Kumar said.
“This illiterate government, subservient to Ambani and Adani, can only retain power if they destroy democracy and that is what they are trying to do. But it’s only a matter of time before Gyanesh Kumar and Modi have to go,” he added.
Detentions
Those detained include Aam Aadmi Party leaders Saurabh Bharadwaj, Sanjeev Jha, Anurag Dhanda, Atishi and Sanjay Singh, hundreds of Left party leaders and protesters, including from AISA, DYFI and SFI, the Congress's youth group NSUI and unaffiliated citizens who have been attempting to reach the protest spots despite the many barricades.
Delhi police personnel were seen dragging protesters into buses and in one instance, punching a protester who had already been detained and put on a bus. AAP, while posting the video on their social media handle, criticised the police action.
Delhi Policeman was seen punching a non-violent detained GenZ in the face.
This is totally unacceptable and Aam Aadmi Party criticises this conduct of Delhi Police. pic.twitter.com/W3odckwu3P
— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) October 2, 2026
Among those detained were SFI All India leaders Adarsh M. Saji, Srijan Bhattacharyya, Aishe Ghosh, and S. Shilpa, along with DYFI leaders Himaghnaraj Bhattacharyya, A.A. Rahim, and Sanjeev Kumar.
Senior CPI(M) leaders, including General Secretary M.A. Baby and Brinda Karat, were also detained while participating in the protest.
Media reports suggest "more than 700" protesters have been detained so far, at the time of publishing this report. The Left parties have said that more than 1,000 activists were taken into custody and transported to police stations across Delhi.
Several people present at the protest site noted how the police personnel outnumbered the protesters. "There was no need for such heavy police deployment, we are just citizens and are protesting peacefully. I want all of them to be posted to the Indo-China border to deal with Chinese ghuspetiye (intruders) instead. Or they can be deployed to ensure women's safety, but I doubt the Union home minister would understand this request," said 28-year-old advocate, Gaurav, in a tongue-in-cheek response.
Internet services and metro disruptions
As per government directives, telecom companies have stopped internet services in many areas of Central Delhi.
Around 4,000 police personnel including companies of central forces and other paramilitary forces have been deployed in Delhi ahead of the protests by several outfits.
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has shut down 11 metro stations in the national capital till further notice. The Metro stations which will be closed include Janpath, Patel Chowk, Central Secretariat, Rajiv Chowk, Seva Teerth, Mandi House, Lok Kalyan Marg, INA, Chawri Bazar, Ramakrishna Ashram Marg, New Delhi and Barakhamba Road.
Protesters at the site spoke about the difficulties they faced in reaching the site. "We got off at ITO, because all other stations near Jantar Mantar were shut. Many auto drivers were also reluctant to come here so we walked for some time before someone agreed to ferry us. They've [government] created problems but people are still showing up even if metro stations are closed," said Anushka, a law student, who only wanted to be identified by her first name.
Early this morning, the Delhi Police brought the whole of the New Delhi district under Section 163 of the BNSS, indicating curfew.
With inputs from Soumashree Sarkar.
This article went live on October second, two thousand twenty six, at thirty-three minutes past two in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
