Rajasthan Police detained a group of college students in Alwar on Sunday ahead of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s public programme in the city, as the students were planning to stage a protest and wave black flags at him.
Shah, accompanied by Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, is scheduled to address a public meeting at Vijay Nagar Ground in Alwar and inaugurate development projects worth Rs 6,279 crore across the state, including projects valued at Rs 783 crore in Alwar district.
In Pune on August 1, several office-bearers of the Maharashtra Youth Congress and Pune City Congress were taken into custody shortly after midnight ahead of the visit by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. The Youth Congress alleged that its leaders were held for nearly 16 hours and that police seized their mobile phones during the detention.
The students were taken into custody ahead of a proposed protest at RR College, according to police sources cited in media reports. Other issues on their agenda included the poor condition of roads, the alleged Matsya scam involving corruption in the fisheries department, and the demand for the restoration of student union elections in Rajasthan, the report said, citing a police source. The protesters had planned to raise the matter of the lathi-charge on students at Jantar Mantar in Delhi during the Cockroach Janta Party protest in July. The detentions in Alwar form part of a broader pattern of preventive arrests ahead of Amit Shah’s public engagements in recent weeks. They also coincide with the Opposition’s continued demand for the Home Minister’s resignation over the police action against student protesters in Delhi in July. Those demonstrations prompted the resignation of senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan from his post as education minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Student organisations have subsequently claimed that activists continue to face detention, notwithstanding government assurances that no punitive measures would be taken once the protests had concluded.
