In a rally called on August 8 by Supreme Court lawyer and former Delhi BJP spokesperson, Ashwini Upadhyay, crowd allegedly raised anti-Muslim slogans. The rally was marched at Jantar Mantar “against Colonial-era Law” under “Bharat Jodo Movement” which was attended by hundreds of people.
Shipra Srivastava, media-in-charge of Bharat Jodo Movement said, “There was a protest against colonial laws used to suppress Indians by the British, which still exist. We were there to protest against those laws and for Uniform Civil Code because our demand was that there should be one rule in one country. There was no such (inflammatory) slogan in my knowledge… there were 5,000 people and if five-six people in some corner would be shouting such slogans, then we disassociate ourselves from them.”
“We refused permission after informing them about DDMA guidelines and later we got to know that Ashwini Upadhyay was looking for an indoor venue. Police arrangements were in place and we thought around 50 people would come, but suddenly many people in small groups started gathering. They were protesting peacefully, but started raising slogans when they were dispersing,” a senior officer from the New Delhi district said. As per the guidelines of DDMA, special permissions needs to be taken from Delhi L-G, chairperson of DDMA for such gathering or protests because it is not allowed for large crowd to gather at one place in view of Covid protocols.
On being asked to DCP of New Delhi District, Deepak Yadav about the matter, he said, “We are verifying all the video clips,” and refused to comment any further.
