September 3, 2012, 10:53 amComment

Activists Against Corruption Claim Police Harassment

By NIHARIKA MANDHANA

Saurabh Das/Associated PressArvind Kejriwal, center, at the Parliament Street police station in New Delhi on Sept. 3, 2012.

Arvind Kejriwal offered himself up for arrest Monday as part of a “Jail Bharo” or “Fill the Jails” protest, designed to draw attention to what anti-corruption activists say is police harassment of the movement’s supporters.
Mr. Kejriwal and four others gave statements to a Delhi police station, in connection with protests they led on August 26 outside the houses of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party; and Nitin Gadkari, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The police accuse Mr. Kejriwal and other activists from “India Against Corruption” of violating a rule on public assembly, rioting and damaging public property, including a police vehicle and barricades.
The August 26 protests in Delhi, organized to condemn irregularities in the government’s allocation of coal mining concessions, were in violation of a rule that prohibits the assembly of more than four people, the police said. Protesters were beaten with bamboo sticks called lathis and sprayed with water cannons. Several key leaders of the agitation were detained for a few hours.
“I don’t think we are guilty of any offense,” Mr. Kejriwal told a crowd of supporters as he emerged from a police station on Delhi’s Parliament Street. “But if we have committed a crime in the eyes of the police, we are willing to accept the punishment.”
Mr. Kejriwal and his aides were not arrested on Monday, but one police official, who was in the meeting with Mr. Kejriwal but didn’t want to be identified, said they would soon be charged. Questioning of other protestors who the police say were involved in vandalizing property will be put on hold.
The Delhi police filed five “first information reports,” the first step to investigating a crime, on August 26, alleging that protestors were violent and had destroyed property. Mr. Kejriwal said the demonstrations were peaceful, and accused the police of attacking unarmed protesters.
He also condemned the investigation and accused the police of “harassing” protesters by calling them in for questioning. In an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Kejriwal alleged that the police had served tens of notices to protestors who were being summoned to police stations, questioned for long periods and made to remain there all day.
Mr. Kejriwal invited the police to question him instead. “Whatever they want to do, they should do it to me,” Mr. Kejriwal said. “I take full moral responsibility.”
Amit Kumar Mishra, 25, who was outside the Parliament Street police station, said he was one of several India Against Corruption supporters who had been served a police notice and questioned. “They are trying to scare us with this kind of harassment,” Mr. Mishra said. He called the police “puppets in the hands of political leaders.” The police “don’t arrest those who it should arrest,” he added, referring to leaders who have been implicated in corruption scandals. “And when we protest against corruption, they come to arrest us.”
Some 200 protestors participated in Monday’s “Jail Bharo” campaign, a form of protest used extensively by Mahatma Gandhi during India’s freedom struggle. “We will all go to jail if they don’t stop harassing our fellow protesters,” said Yogender Pal Singh, 56, who has supported the movement against corruption from its inception last year.
Mr. Kejriwal is among the group of activists who helped start a mass campaign for the creation of a “Jan Lokpal,” or an anti-corruption ombudsman, to tackle corruption in the government. Last month, the group, popularly known as Team Anna after founder Anna Hazare, said it plans to provide a “political alternative” to India in the form of a new political party.
Meanwhile, India’s two leading national parties have been locked in a dispute over the allocation of coal mining concessions by the government. Failing to put these blocks up for auction caused India of loss of nearly $34 billion in revenues, according to the country’s chief auditor. The Indian Parliament’s “monsoon session” has been disrupted day after day by opposition parties, who are demanding the cancellation of licenses to mine coal, and calling for the resignation of the prime minister.

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