Photo: Ji-Elle / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
In a rare show of dissent from within the force, Delhi Police personnel gathered on the footpath outside Gate No. 1 of the city’s police headquarters on Monday morning, November 2, to protest against the transfer of two officers who were moved after a lawyer was allegedly injured at Shahdara police station last month. Estimates of the crowd ranged from around 80 to about 100 personnel, among them women officers, some carrying placards and posters.
The protesters want Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Manasvi Vashistha and Inspector Arun Kumar, the Station House Officer (SHO) of Shahdara police station, returned to their earlier postings. They also asked for a Sampark Sabha, an interaction session with the Police Commissioner, to air their concerns.
Senior officers urge discipline
The personnel began assembling at around 8 am. New Delhi DCP Sachin Sharma reached the spot soon after and spoke to ACP Vashistha, who was among those present, asking him not to go ahead with a protest. Sharma reminded the gathering of the discipline expected of a uniformed force, told them not to act like protesters, and invited some of them inside the headquarters to take up their grievances with the Commissioner. None of them agreed to go in, and no senior officer came out of the building to address the crowd.
Calls to assemble outside the headquarters had circulated on Delhi Police WhatsApp groups ahead of Monday. District DCPs and unit heads had been told to make sure their staff did not turn up.
How the dispute began
The row goes back to October 23, when an advocate allegedly suffered a serious head injury in a scuffle at Shahdara police station. Lawyers in Delhi’s district courts went on an indefinite strike demanding action. They said they had first been assured that the accused would be arrested, only to learn the next day that the accused had been let go. They also alleged that one officer brandished a loaded revolver and threatened them during a meeting with senior police officers, a claim senior officials have called false and unsupported by evidence.
On October 28, Vashistha was moved from his post as Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Gandhi Nagar to the Special Police Unit for Women and Children, while Kumar was shifted from Shahdara police station to the Security Branch. The lawyers called off their strike once the orders were issued. Two days later, Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar met representatives of the Bar Council of Delhi and the district bar associations, and both sides agreed to set up a joint coordination and grievance redressal mechanism.
Why it matters and what comes next
The transfers have left a section of the force feeling that the two officers were penalised to end the strike. Open protest by serving police personnel is unusual. The last comparable episode came in 2019, when more than 2,000 personnel and their families gathered outside the headquarters after a string of clashes with lawyers, including one linked to a parking dispute at Tis Hazari court. That protest ended after senior officers promised a review petition in court, medical help for the injured and an ex-gratia payment of ₹25,000 to them.
The protest comes a day before Lieutenant Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu is scheduled to interact with Delhi Police personnel, from constables to inspectors, at Utsav Sadan in Kingsway Camp at 4 pm on Tuesday, November 3. Police headquarters had not publicly responded to the protesters’ demands at the time of writing.
