Detained, Summoned, And Now Slapped With FIRs: Inside Mumbai's Protest Crackdown

Tomar, along with several others, was detained for four hours. They were asked to state their names, age, phone numbers, and addresses, and only released once their lawyers spoke to the police.

Even as he thought that would be the end of his ordeal, it wasn’t.

On 24 July, he and 89 other ‘accused’ received an FIR (a copy of which has been accessed by The Quint) stating that they were found “unlawfully gathering an unauthorised assembly on the footpath without permission, and while walking on the footpath, raising slogans and sloganeering.”

As per the FIR, the 90 protesters have been booked under several charges, including Section 189 (2) (unlawful assembly) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 37 (1) and 37 (3) (power to prohibit certain acts for prevention of disorder) and Section 135 (penalty for contravention of rules or directions under Section 37) of the Maharashtra Police Act.

A majority of those named in the said FIR filed at Shivaji Park police station are between the ages of 17 and 30. The Quint tried to contact the police station multiple times, but they remained unavailable for comment. Their responses will be added as and when they revert.

Ansari (name withheld to protect identity), 22, recounts that he was detained before he could even join the protest. Ansari was walking with a group of friends on a road behind Shivaji Park when he was stopped by cops for questioning. He alleges they snatched their phones and pushed them into the van. He and his friends were then taken to Worli police station, where they were detained for nearly five hours.

Karishma Malhotra (name changed to protect identity), a 22-year-old student pursuing her master’s degree, was stopped at Dadar station by a man dressed in civil clothes—again before she and her friends reached the protest site.

She recounts, “They started questioning us: ‘Who are you? Where are you going?’ I asked him who he was, to which he said, ‘I am a police officer.’ We told him we had just come from college and were meeting a few friends.”

When one of them questioned the man the grounds on which they were being stopped, she was allegedly manhandled, Malhotra recounts.

They were taken to Dadar police station, where they were detained for over four hours. They were asked to share their names, addresses, and phone numbers before being released. They were, however, asked to return the next day to give a signed statement and fingerprints.

Malhotra has now been named, along with 71 others, in a separate FIR (a copy of which has also been accessed by The Quint).