Hyderabad police detain activists to prevent them from meeting commissioner

Hyderabad: Social workers who wanted to meet police commissioner Anjani Kumar to voice their dissent at the police refusing permission to hold a meeting to oppose the CAA, NRC and NPR, were intercepted and detained by the police on Monday.

Police detained social activist Jasveen Jairath, educationist Sheela Sara Mathews and Ilyas Khan before they could assemble at Public Gardens in Nampally. Their colleagues were waiting for them at Madina Education Centre and staged a protest against the detention and quickly dispersed before the police reached there. The police refused to give permission for a meeting to be organised by the Communist Party of India at Crystal Gardens in Hyderabad, which was to feature former JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar.

They had anticipated protests against this denial of permission and so deployed a heavy police force around the Hyderabad police commissionerate and at the Public Garden. When the protesters reached Public Garden, the police told them not to gather there as it is a high security zone. When they began moving towards the Khan Lateef Khan Estate, they were taken into custody and shifted to the Begum Bazaar police station and released in the evening.

Ms Jairath, reacting to her detention, said the TRS government which had opposed the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament was now dancing to the tune of the Centre. “The police allowed the RSS to take out a rally with arms in Hyderabad recently, but refused to grant permission to Kanhaiya Kumar to hold a meeting in a function hall,” she pointed out

She alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was trying to crush the fundamental rights of the people and opposition to the CAA, NRC and NPR as he feared action from the Modi government. She appealed to the people to be aware about the hidden links between political parties which are working to a common agenda and not vote for such parties.