New Delhi: A day before the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) assembled for a protest at Jantar Mantar, a young civil services aspirant was allegedly “hounded” by the Delhi Police for sharing information about the upcoming protest and its itinerary.
Taking cognisance of the matter, Left leader Brinda Karat wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha for an inquiry into the matter involving Aahana Singh Kaith, a post-graduate student of Delhi University (DU).
“I am writing to you seeking urgent intervention into illegal actions by the Rajinder Nagar police station. Action must be taken against the police officers concerned and those who gave illegal orders to harass, intimidate, frighten and coerce a young woman,” she wrote to the city police chief.
According to Aahana, she had just reached her gym in Rajinder Nagar around 12.15 pm on 5 June when the receptionist alerted her that the police had been looking for her. “There were four or five policemen who quickly surrounded me and took me to the basement of Sriram IAS where they badgered me with questions,” she told The Print.
“You are part of CJP. Tell us who all are part of it? What is your plan of action tomorrow? Who all will be going from here? What do you think about the current government? What are your political inclinations?” Aahana recalled them asking.
The CJP protest at Jantar Mantar took place on 6 June.
As she kept denying any connections with the CJP, the police allegedly kept “forcing her to accept that she was a CJP leader”.
“When I did not agree to having any affiliation with the party, they asked to check my phone but I refused. I told them that since they did not have a warrant, I could only allow them to see my phone in my presence,” she said. Following this, the police allegedly went through her call records and WhatsApp chats in front of her.
“There was one Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Shivam, sub-inspector Rita, and a couple of other officers. The officers then asked me to share my live location on WhatsApp, and informed me that an officer had been assigned to me who would be positioned near my residence,” she said.
Around 7.30 pm when Aahana received two back-to-back calls from unknown numbers, she quickly reported the calls to the police. “The callers asked me what they should do tomorrow (Saturday) to join the CJP’s protest. I informed them that I’m not a CJP leader and did not know anything about it,” she recalled.
The final-year Masters student had earlier been part of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and participated in the protest in Rajinder Nagar when three civil services aspirants drowned in a basement in July 2024.
Subsequently, she participated in the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) protest in the capital last August. “For more than a year, I have not been part of any movement and have been preparing for the civil services exam, but I have been harassed and surveilled without any proof,” she told ThePrint.
The DU student alleged that Sub-Inspector Ritu Jakhar surveilled her from 5 June (Friday) to 6 June (Saturday) afternoon. “She told me that she would keep her eyes on me until the protest was over.”
She added that when the ‘live location’ feature in her cellphone turned off automatically, Jakhar allegedly went to her apartment and rang her doorbell continuously. “I informed her that the live location turns off automatically after a few hours and that I was asleep, so I could not take her call,” she said.
Aahana alleged that several students who had participated in various student movements in the past were called and questioned about their whereabouts in the run-up to the CJP protest, but she was the only one surveilled to this extent.
DCP (Central) Rohit Rajbir Singh told ThePrint that since there were a number of protests in the area previously, the police had information that a similar protest would happen in the area.
“So the police was trying to gauge if there would be any protests in the area and what would be the scale,” he said. If a formal complaint about “surveillance” was received, there would be a “thorough inquiry into the matter,” he added.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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