Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 3: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Saturday took cognisance of allegations that minors were involved in the Friday’s Cockroach Janta Party rally at the Shivaji Park in Mumbai and that their images were circulated online.
The Commission has sought reports from the Mumbai police on the allegations stating that it had received complaints from the Sewa Nyaya Utthan Foundation about the alleged use of minors to mobilise protesters citing posts on X allegedly showing a young child being held above a crowd carrying the National Flag and a placard, while slogans were raised and people recorded the child.
The NHRC notices did not establish that the children were used by the organisers of the rally but it directed the Mumbai police and other concerned authorities to investigate the claims, preserve digital evidence and protect the identities and rights of the children.
Before issuing the notices, the NHRC bench considered the complaints under section 12 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. The complaint was submitted by the head of the Sewa Foundation Satish Vaid. The complaint which referred to images of children sitting on the road during the demonstration, had also claimed that the alleged participation of the minors had been discussed in group chats before the protest rally, possibly to discourage police intervention during the demonstration. The commission said the material indicated that some persons described as minors were also part of these discussions and had allegedly agreed to participate.
The Friday’s demonstration in Mumbai was organised to demand the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and an end to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of the electoral rolls and restoration of the names removed during SIR. Thousands of people including some prominent names in the Bollywood films had participated in the rally.
Though the gathering passed without any violence, the Mumbai police later registered an FIR over unauthorised assembly since the police had not granted permission for holding the rally at the Shivaji Park. The FIR said about 400 to 500 people had gathered near Gate number 6 of the Park and had obstructed traffic and used loudspeakers without permission.
In the rally, the CJP chief Abhijit Dipke had threatened that the CJP campaign would continue in different cities across the country and would be further intensified taking it to Delhi to start Jantar Mantar 2.0 on October 10 if Mr Gyanesh Kumar did not resign till then. He had also warned that if Mr Gyanesh Kumar was forced to resign, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also have to quit sooner than later.
“If Gyanu is gone, then Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also go.” “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shop is running because of the ECI. Who is Gyanesh [Kumar] to take away Babasaheb’s Constitution,” said Ashutosh Ranka, adding that “this is just a trailer as the picture will be at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.”
Mr Dipke on Friday had also announced that If Mr Kumar did not resign, cockroaches from across India would march to Delhi and protest at Jantar Mantar on October 10. “If Delhi Police tries to stop us, wherever they stop us will become our Jantar Mantar. Ours will be a peaceful andolan. We will walk on the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi. It is up to the Govt & the Delhi Police whether they respect our right to peaceful protest or repeat the brutality we witnessed on July 20,” he said on X.
Addressing the gathering, Mr Ranka said protesters should not fear action against them. “We should not be afraid of detention. We should not be afraid of being arrested. They will try to scare and threaten us, but we are not going to be afraid,” he said.
Regarding the number of protesters gathered at the spot, a senior police official from Dadar present there said: “The inflow of people is reported to be around 4,000-5,000 and police force deployed is around 800, along with riot control police units.”