Delhi Police used Lathi-charge & water cannons to disperse a crowd over rising violence

Police
resorted to a lathi-charge and used water cannons to disperse a crowd that
turned violent in Delhi’s Daryaganj on Friday, just minutes after a
two-and-a-half-hour long peaceful agitation against the amended citizenship law
got over.

The police
action, which followed stone-pelting and arson, forced several people to flee,
including many of those who had joined protests that started in the afternoon
and went on till evening , can be proved by hundreds of abandoned shoes
scattered on the road between Delhi Gate and Brij Mohan Chowk.

At least 46
people were injured in stone-pelting and police action.

According to
eye-witnesses, thousands of people gathered on Friday afternoon on Netaji
Subhash Marg, where police had put up barricades near Delhi Gate.

Some of them
were in the region for Friday payers, considered by Muslims to be the holiest of
the week, at the Jama Masjid, some other locals living in the neighbourhood and
some others who joined the protests just as they had on Thursday in various
locations across central Delhi.

At about
5pm, as the protesters started to disperse, thousands more people turned up, according
to the police from parts of north-east Delhi. This group, that soon got increased
in number to about 15,000 as per police estimates, started to break the cordon
of barricades.

Police
spokesperson MS Randhawa said the security personnel first launched water
cannons to disperse the crowd, and then charged with lathis as the agitators
torched a private vehicle and started pelted stones.

The city has
been on edge since last Sunday. Eighteen Metro stations were blocked on Friday,
after 20 the previous day, when prohibitory orders under Section 144 were
imposed in several parts and mobile services were shut down in Delhi for the
first time.