The registration of an FIR over the use of pellet guns against a youth at the July 20 students’ protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi is as much a forced gesture as Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation in the wake of the protests. Both the police and Dharmendra Pradhan conceded only under pressure to demands that were fair and legitimate. Just as the minister resisted demands for his resignation for weeks, the police refused to file an FIR despite a youth suffering an eye injury from pellet firing. Dharmendra Pradhan should have resigned on moral grounds for the paper leak, and the police was duty-bound to register a case once a complaint was lodged. Both cases underscore accountability and responsibility in a democracy governed by the rule of law; but in both cases, decisions had to be extracted from unwilling authorities through popular pressure.

It reflects poorly on law enforcement that the police agreed to a normal legal procedure, which is every citizen’s right, only after Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi sat on a six-hour dharna on August 21. Sahil Lochab, the student allegedly hit by pellets, had submitted a written complaint on August 14 and pursued his request every day. There was no justifiable reason for the police to refuse to file an FIR, especially when it had filed hundreds of cases against protesting students. Rahul Gandhi took up the case when the police failed to do its duty. The BJP’s criticism that he was resorting to ‘’cheap and diversionary politics’’ and was promoting anarchy is not valid. It was the police that presented a case to be picked up by the Opposition leader, and protests seeking justice and fair State action cannot be dismissed as anarchic.

The government and the police have denied the charges about excessive use of force during the July 20 protests. Yet evidence of brutal and disproportionate force was evident, including the use of pellet guns. The Delhi Police initially denied it, but references later surfaced in a police diary. The Supreme Court has since appointed a high-powered committee led by Justice R Subhash Reddy to investigate allegations of excessive force and mistreatment of women by the police. The committee’s findings will be crucial in establishing the truth, fixing accountability, and addressing the violence unleashed on protesting students. It is the sense of accountability that the police tried to avoid in the case of the FIR. (Source: PTI)