'Shirtless' protest | Court sends arrested IYC workers to 5-day police custody

A court here on Saturday allowed Delhi Police to question in its custody four Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers who were arrested for holding a 'shirtless' protest at the AI Impact Summit venue a day ago. On Friday, Krishna Hari, national secretary of Youth Congress from Bihar; Kundan Yadav, state secretary of Bihar; Ajay Kumar, state president of Uttar Pradesh; and Narasimha Yadav from Telangana were arrested after the protest inside an exhibition hall at the Summit. The arrested persons and others were holding T-shirts printed with images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump along with slogans against the government and the India-US deal.

They also allegedly engaged in a protracted scuffle with security personnel and police staff deployed at the venue. On Saturday afternoon, the four were produced before Judicial Magistrate Ravi, following which Delhi Police sought five days of custodial interrogation. The court reserved its order after hearing the arguments. Around 2 PM, it allowed the plea seeking police custody.

A reasoned order of the court was not made public till late evening. During the proceedings, Delhi Police sought five-day custody arguing that they raised anti-national slogans and wore T-shirts with objectionable images of Prime Minister Modi. The public prosecutor said that the mobile phones of the accused persons were required to be recovered and that, as they were from different states, custodial interrogation was necessary. He argued it was a "serious" matter and that an attempt was made to stop the police, following which three police officials were injured. Besides, the conspiracy of organising the protest, the source of funding, the identity of other protestors, and where the T-shirts were printed needed to be ascertained, the prosecutor added.

The prosecutor claimed that the country's prestige was harmed as the incident occurred in the presence of foreign delegates. Countering the arguments seeking police custody, the counsel for the accused argued that they were associated with a political party and had exercised their democratic right to peaceful protest at Bharat Mandapam. "Bail is the rule and jail is an exception. All are degree holders. All alleged offences have a punishment of less than seven years," the counsel said. The advocate claimed their arrest greatly diminished the dignity of democracy and that if arrests are to be made for protesting, then MPs protesting in Parliament should also be arrested.