Pro-Palestine Demonstrators Arrested in Delhi During Citizens' Vigil

Two busloads of demonstrators denouncing Israel's war on Gaza arrived here on Monday for a "Citizens' Vigil," but were arrested by Delhi police and the Rapid Action Force.

The All India Students' Association of CPIML Liberation had been denied permission to hold the gathering due to security concerns.

Despite the refusal of permission, some one hundred people from Leftist student organizations, labor unions, and human rights forums showed up on Monday afternoon. Protesters started chanting slogans as the police tried to force them into buses in the area behind the Patel Chowk Metro parking. After that, they were forced into buses.

Students who attempted to flee toward the Metro station were pursued by the police. A confrontation broke out between a woman and TV reporters when the latter questioned her about her support for Palestine in light of the Prime Minister's backing of Israel.

When the cops noticed this, they raced into the parking lot and started dragging her until she passed out and wouldn't get up. Saroj Giri, an assistant professor at Delhi University, then intervened.

"You have suppressed the demonstration and removed the demonstrators. "Why pursue her to the Metro station?" he questioned the on-duty police. Giri was requested to get aside, but he persisted in his argument. He declared, "She is my student and she has done nothing wrong." At last, the police dragged Giri and the woman away.

Giri spoke over the phone from the police bus to The Telegraph, saying, "The way they have cracked down is unprecedented." "It's clear that (PM) Modi is making a lot of effort to win over Israel. India has a great deal of support for Palestine, but there is nowhere to voice this solidarity. Nobody is attempting to justify civilian deaths by Hamas. More demonstrations of this kind are required to bring attention to the situation in Palestine.

On Monday night, all of the inmates at the Jafarpur police station in southwest Delhi were released.

Protesters demanded an end to the war and Palestine's independence, in keeping with India's declared support for negotiations leading to the creation of two independent states: Israel and Palestine. But after the Prime Minister backed Israel following Hamas incursions into the nation that resulted in the deaths of multiple people, including civilians, the police stepped up their efforts to suppress support for Palestine.

While Delhi police have suppressed rallies, such as the one on Monday and the one by Jamia Millia Islamia students last week, Uttar Pradesh police have arrested people simply for expressing solidarity with Palestine on social media. The All India Peace and Solidarity Organization staged a demonstration on Saturday, and despite their warnings to depart, the police did not stop them.

This newspaper was informed by educationist Rohit Kumar, who participated in the protest on Saturday, that "it is a natural progression of what has happened in the last decade." Secularism was vilified as a term. Jewish rabbis from Israel are releasing recordings in which they express their disgust with the way Israel is waging this war. But if you question Israel in India, people get very defensive. This is a result of disinformation, manipulation, and stupidity.

He went on, "Some of us grew up seeing our Prime Ministers, right from Nehru's time, as leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement and fighting alongside leaders like Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Tutu against apartheid in South Africa and Israel."

Adnan Abu Alhaija, the Palestinian ambassador, was met by a number of opposition leaders and activists on Monday. The leaders included Manoj K. Jha, the MP for the RJD, D. Raja, the general secretary of the CPI, Dipankar Bhattacharya, the general secretary of the CPIML Liberation, Subhashini Ali and Nilotpal Basu of the CPM, Javed Ali Khan, the MP for the Samajwadi Party, K.C. Tyagi of the JDU, Danish Ali, the MP for the BSP, and Nadeem Khan, secretary of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights.

The leaders released a statement saying, "We call for intensified diplomatic efforts and multilateral initiatives to ensure a lasting peace in the region," Congressman Mani Shankar Aiyar among those who were not there. We convey our sincere sorrow for the Palestinian people's suffering and the ongoing situation in Gaza. We vehemently denounce Israel's targeted bombing of Palestinians in Gaza, which we consider to be an attempt at genocide. We demand that all hostilities end immediately in order to stop more innocent people from dying and from having homes and infrastructure destroyed.

They demanded that humanitarian help be passed right away.

They also mentioned Mahatma Gandhi in the statement, quoting him as saying that "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French."

"Gandhi believed that it is crucial to acknowledge the Palestinian people's sovereignty and territorial rights, in the same way that any other nation has the right to its homeland," the statement read.