Activists and citizens who gathered at Marine Drive to protest against the Citizenship Act were detained by the Marine Drive police, leading to a large mob gathering outside the police station on Friday evening.
The police said the protesters were detained as they did not have permission to take out a march and were released after a warning.
The protesters included former Indian Administrative Service officer Kannan Gopinathan, who resigned from his post in protest against the withdrawal of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir. On Friday, the protesters started gathering outside Ambassador Hotel on Marine Drive. The police reached the spot at 6.50 p.m. and rounded them up.
A former students’ union leader of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Fahad Ahmed, was one of the first to be detained while reading out to the police from a copy of the Indian Constitution the freedoms guaranteed to citizens under Article 19 such as the freedom of speech and right to assemble peacefully without arms.
Mr. Ahmed was dragged by the neck into a police van in plain sight of several journalists. “Look at what the police are doing to me. They are choking me when all I did was read out the Constitution to them. They are violating my rights and assaulting me,” Mr. Ahmed shouted from inside the van.
Others to be detained included Mr. Gopinathan and activist Firoze Mithiborwala. “How can you consider walking on Marine Drive with posters a crime? It is my right as a free citizen of this country and you cannot in good conscience say I am doing something wrong,” Mr. Gopinathan said, as police dragged him into the van.
Senior police inspector Mrityunjay Hiremath said, “The protesters were detained as they did not have prior permission for the protest. We released them after issuing a warning.”
Hundreds of people subsequently gathered outside the police station and the police had to put up barricades to keep them at bay. The people raised slogans as soon as the detained protesters were released, and their placards were seized. Police asked them to stop the sloganeering. Mr. Gopinathan and Mr. Mithiborwala asked the others to comply, after which the protesters dispersed. The police escorted them to Churchgate station as a precautionary measure.
