On Thursday morning, 29-year-old student Shefali Saini received an unexpected call from Mumbai’s Colaba police station. She was served a sh...
On Thursday morning, 29-year-old student Shefali Saini received an unexpected call from Mumbai’s Colaba police station. She was served a show-cause notice to sign a bond promising lawful behaviour for two years, against a surety of Rs 1 lakh.
This notice had been prompted by the fact that Saini had participated in the “Occupy Gateway” protest in January, to condemn the violent attack on students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Even though more 2,000 people attended the protest at Gateway of India from January 5 to January 7, the Colaba police named just 10 people in its first information report against the protesters. Saini was one of them, booked for unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint and under sections of the Bombay Police Act.
Similar cases have been filed against selected students and activists involved in protests early this year at Hutatma Chowk and Mumbai Bagh in Mumbai Central against the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s Citizenship Amendment Act.
Unlike other cases against citizen protesters, however, the Mumbai police’s approach in these three cases has been particularly harsh.
Since August, the police has served show-cause notices and demanded hefty surety bonds from 25 people booked for the protests at Gateway of India, Hutatma Chowk and Mumbai Bagh. On...
