This week, for the eighth time in my life — or was it the ninth? — I was picked up from the streets and detained by the Delhi Police. What was our crime? We had dared to hold a peaceful dharna outside the headquarters of the Election Commission of India (EC). We were urging the EC to ensure a level playing field for the 2024 general elections. To make this happen, our demand was that the chiefs of the NIA, CBI, ED and IT be immediately transferred. Also, we were requesting the EC to allow the government of West Bengal to release funds for humanitarian relief to people who were affected by a recent cyclone.

After our 10-member delegation met with the full bench of the EC and submitted our memorandum, we addressed the media outside the main gate. We then sat down, away from the main entrance, and began a peaceful dharna. Within minutes we, Members of Parliament, current and former, were dragged, roughed up, and bundled into a waiting police bus. No request. No conversation. No engagement with peaceful protestors. Just the immediate use of brute force.

Do not take this columnist’s word for what transpired in those ten minutes. Instead, take a look at the pictures and the video footage. The visuals tell you the story of what happened to a 10-member delegation of the third-largest political party in India within moments of beginning a peaceful dharna. (Of the multiple photographs that appeared in newspapers across the country the following day, there were two that perfectly captured the hostility and aggression of the Delhi police. One was by Anil Sharma of The Indian Express and the other by Manvender Lav of PTI — good old-fashioned political photojournalism in print is alive and well.)

Among those bundled into the rickety Delhi Police bus was a trio of three-term MPs — Dola Sen, Nadimul Haque and your columnist. There were two former journalists who had recently joined politics: Sagarika Ghose and Saket Gokhale. Sagarika’s was a baptism by fire. She had been elected an MP, but was still 36 hours away from taking her oath. Saket worked as a journalist in Europe and East Asia for eight years before deciding to come back home with suitcases filled with idealism and optimism.

The 10 of us were told we were being taken to the Mandir Marg Police Station — which is less than 10 minutes away from the EC office. After reaching the main gate of Mandir Marg Police Station, the police did not take us inside. Instead, the bus started again and we were told that we were now being taken to Connaught Place. After about 20 minutes on the moving bus, one of my colleagues, Vivek Gupta, MLA, familiar with Delhi roads, looked outside and alerted us that the route being taken was definitely not the one to Connaught Place.

When we questioned the police constables inside the bus, we were told that they were taking us to “Jaffarpur”, which they said was “only about 30 minutes away”. We checked Google Maps which told us that the place they were taking us to was in fact about two hours away!

What was going on here? Was a delegation of MPs and former MPs literally being taken for a ride by law enforcement? Illegally being moved to an unknown location? Why was no information given? This unlawful detention went on for over an hour.

Under Section 50(1) of the CrPC, anyone being arrested needs to be immediately informed about the grounds for their arrest. None of us were even once informed during these 90 minutes. Also, the law requires that a detained or arrested person be taken to the police station closest to where the alleged offence occurred. Forget the nearest police station, we weren’t even told where specifically we were being taken even after we learnt that it was someplace about two hours away.

Saket is quite a pundit on all this. Tough nut. He had spent 151 days in Ahmedabad Central Jail last year, on a trumped-up charge in a money laundering case. He was also arrested by the Gujarat Police four times in 15 days and is an authority on what being taken into custody entails. When the police were taking us to some unknown place, Saket demanded that we either be taken to Mandir Marg Police Station or be produced before a magistrate immediately.

Very quickly, the bus was stopped.

The junior policemen worked their mobile phones. The seniors arrived on the spot. Their bluff had been called. We headed back to Mandir Marg Police Station where we were with the Delhi Police for 24 hours. But that is a story for another day, another column.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, April 12, 2024]