WHILE THE STUDENT PROTESTS led by the Cockroach Janta Party at the Jantar Mantar might have come to a halt with the realisation of its central demand in the form of a resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan the brunt of the brute force used by the forces deployed at the protest on the peaceful protesters have not ceased to exist.
In a disturbing series of developments, a general diary entry filed at the Parliament Street police station explicitly records that the Rapid Action Force (‘RAF’) fired two rounds from an anti-riot gun on the directions of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (‘DCP’) of Delhi Police.
On July 27, a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court seeking the issuance of a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ or direction by the Supreme Court on ‘decommissioning or banning the use of wholly or partly metallic kinetic projectiles/pellets from pump action rifles or projectile action guns (PAG)’ by the law enforcement agencies for the purposes of ‘crowd dispersal of civilian assemblies’ along with the grant of ‘exemplary compensation to all victims of pellet injuries which was caused by the state action on the said date along with ensuring the availability of complete medical treatment, care and rehabilitation of the said victims’.
