Police, not protestors responsible

NEW DELHI: Former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah has told the Supreme Court that the protest at Shaheen Bagh were peaceful and inconvenience caused to commuters was on account of barricades "unnecessarily" put by the police on roads far away from the site.

The same stand has been taken by social activist Syed Bahadur Abbas Naqvi and Bhim Army Chief Chandra Shekhar Azad in their joint affidavit filed in the apex court in the matter.

Habibullah, Azad and Naqvi have jointly filed an intervention application in the apex court which is seized of the matter.

Habibullah had visited the protest site at Shaheen Bagh pursuant to the direction by a bench of Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph. The bench is scheduled to hear the matter on Monday.

The top court is hearing pleas seeking removal of protestors from Shaheen Bagh and ensuring smooth traffic flow in the area.

The apex court had earlier said that though people have a fundamental right to protest "peacefully and lawfully", it was troubled by the blocking of a public road at Shaheen Bagh as it might lead to a "chaotic situation".

In his affidavit filed in the top court, Habibullah has contended that "Shaheen Bagh stands tall as a firm example of peaceful and dignified dissent, more so in the face of various instances of state-sponsored violence in similar episodes across India.

"We have been sad and mute witnesses to police brutality and negative typecasting of a particular community across the country. Crushing dissent instead of entering into a dialogue is the new norm, but it is alien to our Constitution," he has claimed.

Naqvi and Azad, in their joint affidavit, have alleged that "the present ruling dispensation, at the behest of its political masters, had devised a strategy of extinguishing these protests by falsely attributing violence and acts of vandalism to peaceful protestors".