POLICE SAY THEY WARNED MOVEMENT LEADER AGAINST PROTESTING
Dipke was detained as he stepped out of a house in central Delhi, with police hauling him into a police car and driving away after a brief argument.
Student activist Neha Bora, a prominent face of the protests, was also detained as she tried to reach Connaught Place with dozens of supporters.
Senior police officer Sachin Sharma told Reuters that Dipke and Bora had been taken into preventive detention.
“Abhijeet is detained by Delhi Police,” CJP posted on X. “This government is so scared of the youth waving national flag.”
Earlier on Friday, police had met Dipke and warned him against going ahead with the protest. Security was stepped up, with hundreds of police in riot gear fanning out across central Delhi. The park was shut by civic authorities.
Nevertheless, nearly 500 protesters managed to reach Connaught Place in groups and protested in about half a dozen places around the Central Park, waving flags and shouting slogans. A few were detained and taken away in a police vehicle.
“If waving the tricolour in the country has become a crime, then I am happy to go to jail,” said Saurav Kumar, a data analyst, before he was detained. “The government not giving us the space to protest, not accepting faults in the system is not a healthy sign for a democracy.”
Small protests were also held in the financial capital Mumbai and tech hub Bengaluru, while student organisations held a demonstration in the eastern city of Patna, with people waving flags of their organisations and pushing against police barricades.