Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has slammed curbs in Central Delhi in the wake of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar.
CJP leaders and hundreds of protesters were detained on Saturday in a massive police crackdown to stop the protest at Jantar Mantar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. “Most regressive (as well as repressive) is the suspension of the internet in the heart of the national capital. Freedom of movement stands completely shackled. Tharoor doubled down on his attack, calling the event Emer-GenZ, a wordplay on Emergency.
Jantar Mantar was designated precisely so that citizens could voice dissent in the centre of Delhi, and today even the roads leading to it have been declared out of bounds.
As Delhi Police detained CJP leaders and protesters in the Capital, Tharoor said a “confident government” must welcome questions and added that turning the capital into a fortress would only deepen suspicion. Read | “Arrest Me”: Abhijeet Dipke Detained From Plane Ahead Of CJP’s Delhi Protest “I returned to the national capital after 2 am and have rarely seen anything like what Delhi is witnessing now, with checkpoints every few hundred metres, concrete barriers and spike strips laid across our roads, a war-like deployment of 22,000 police and paramilitary across the city, 250 trains cancelled and 45 Metro stations closed, and reports of young people being detained from their own homes and the streets in and around Delhi – all to prevent citizens from peacefully raising questions about the integrity of our elections.
