Chandigarh: It was around 6 am Saturday when the knock came. Most people in the house in Rohtak’s Kabulpur village were still asleep.
At the door was a police party from the Shivaji Colony police station, led by Station House Officer (SHO) Rakesh Kumar. They had come for Jai Dev Dagar, a Zila Parishad member, and said they were there to “arrest” him from his home. The aim was to stop him from going to Jantar Mantar in Delhi for the Cockroach Janata Party’s (CJP) protest.
Dagar did not argue. He made a few phone calls instead.
Within minutes, villagers began arriving. Soon, nearly 500 of them stood outside the house. The villagers told the policemen there would be no detention of Dagar; it was they, the policemen who were under detention, and would stay that way until a senior officer came from Rohtak and explained the reason for the visit.
Mandeep Punia, an independent journalist, posted a video of the stand-off on X. “Jab gaon ke log police ko hi detain kar lein toh tasveer kuchh aisi aati hai,” he wrote in Hindi. In English it means: “When villagers themselves detain the police, this is what the picture looks like.” Several X users shared the video, and others retweeted it or added their own comments.
The stand-off between the policemen and villagers ended at about 1 pm. The police party was allowed to leave for Rohtak only after it gave the villagers a written statement of the purpose of its visit.
The handwritten note in Hindi, signed by the police party and seen by ThePrint, says the Rohtak district administration had imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The CrPC has since been replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), where the corresponding provision is Section 163. The police slip, however, carries the old CrPC section.
The note adds that Jai Dev, described as a “Zila Parishad Counsellor”, had announced that he would go to Delhi for the Jantar Mantar protest. The police had therefore come to detain him at his residence under Section 172 of the BNSS. That section empowers a police officer to detain a person who resists, refuses, ignores or disregards a lawful police direction.
Contacted by ThePrint, Dagar said he had no connection with any political party, but that he “always stands for justice”.
“Vote chori through manipulation of the election process is a big issue in the country today. People believe the Election Commission is using SIR to delete legitimate voters from the electoral rolls to benefit the ruling BJP. That is why I had announced that I would take part in the Jantar Mantar protest. It is my democratic right,” he said.
“When the police knocked at my door early in the morning, I informed the villagers, and they came in large numbers within minutes. The cops were soon on the defensive. They wanted to leave, but the villagers said they were now under detention and would be allowed to go only after the SP came and convinced them of the legitimacy of their action. In the afternoon, when the cops asked the villagers to end the deadlock, the villagers agreed only after the police gave in writing the purpose of their visit.”
Dagar said the written note mattered because the policemen “would have later denied having ever detained him”.
SHO Rakesh Kumar played down the videos. “Jai Dev Dagar is a nice person and a law-abiding citizen. However, he had announced that he would visit Jantar Mantar on Saturday. It was our duty to stop people from gathering in Delhi because the protest is illegal and does not have the permission of the authorities. Hence we went to the village to detain Dagar at his residence, and he too dutifully abided by it,” he said.
“As far as the videos are concerned, the villagers are free to shoot videos and post them on social media. We can’t stop them.”
Kumar, however, hastened to add that the villagers were very nice and they treated them well till the time they were there.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)