Udaipur : Stones, footwear, broken window panes were the remnants of the rally under the ‘Band’ call against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which began peacefully but took an ugly turn at DelhiGate, the busiest junction in the center of the city on Wednesday afternoon. Chaos hit the streets as people ran to escape when policemen resorted to lathi charge to disperse the protestors. Several civilians sustained head injuries while some had fractured hands and legs. Some innocent commuters too fell prey to the violence. When asked for a comment Master Bhanwarlal, minister in-charge of Udaipur said he wasnt aware of the incident and “would look into it”.
The bandh call was made by Bahujan Kranti Morcha and supported by several other social organisations including Rashtriya Muslim Morcha, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Ambedkar memorial welfare society, Bhim army, Udaipur Muslim Youth, Jantantrik Jan Morcha etc. While the protestors claimed they were carrying out a peaceful march and attacked brutally by Khaki force, authorities said the protestors had jammed roads, pelted stones and damaged public property. Cases have been lodged in different police stations while police has detained some of the protestors, sources informed.
“The protestors made road jam, damaged a shop at Delhigate when the shopkeeper refused to closed down on their demand. They got into scuffle with the additional SP and so our staff dispersed them by using mild force as reported to me by the ASP, city GopalSwaroop Mewara” Udaipur SP KailashChandra Bishnoi told . The officer said one constable is injured and admitted in the hospital. Two cases one each from the constable and the shopkeeper has been taken. While the civil society and congress supporters condemned the lathi charge calling it arbitrary and ‘coaxed by communal forces’, the BJP supporters publicly applauded the incident on social media and hailed the police.
Even some of the police officers commented on the social media terming the lathi charge as ‘prasad vitran’ after long time. Congress partymen said this is the third case in an year after the Piladar and Paduna incident, when police had exercised force on public. ” It is really an unfortunate incident. Police administration should not run amok in this manner. They should have handled the situation patiently and not resorted to lathi charge at the first instance. Many innocent people have been injured in the incident, the Khaki behaved uncontrollably ” claimed Raghuvir Singh Meena, Ex MP and member of the congress working committee.