A day after those protesting against the Centre’s role in the alleged attempt to dilute the provisions of the SC/ST Act having made a mess on several roads, indulged in stone pelting and forcibly shut down markets and shops, the Haridwar District Magistrate appealed to the people to maintain peace in the district. However, the question that haunted the people of the district over the role of police all through Monday when the agitators took control of the district, reducing the police to subservience, continued to be raised on Tuesday. The critical refrain that runs is whether the police had been left hamstrung as part of the State Government’s non-confrontation strategy or whether it was a failure on the part of the department’s intelligence unit to gauge the depth of things beforehand.
Many say that the local police found things intractable because of absence of a plan duly firmed up to tackle the stir. Facing flak from different quarters, the district police brass enforced the prohibitory order section 144 of CrPC across the district for an indefinite period since Monday night, but the observers dub it as a belated and gawky action, shorn of any light of professionally crafted strategy. “It is really surprising that the local intelligence unit had no inkling of knowledge of the preparations the youngsters had made to disrupt life on the roads and the markets. Aside from pelting stones and waving staffs to scare the traders into falling in line with the police seemingly at their wits’ end on how to take on them,” said an observer.
A day after the people were left at the mercy of the protesters, the Garhwal DIG Pushpak Jyoti said on Tuesday that strict action would be taken against the miscreants. “Cases have been registered against ten of them in different police stations of Bhagwanpur, Manglaur, Roorkee, Gang Nehar and Bahadrabad and a number of people have been detained so far in the matter,” he said.
Garhwal Commissioner Dilip Jawalkar said that things were fine from the point of view of police preparations. “Haridwar remained by and large peaceful as compared to other districts thanks to the steps police had taken in anticipation of the disturbances that the stir was expected to unleash. We deliberately used limited force and nothing was wrong with the information provided by the local intelligence unit,” he added.
ADG Ashok Kumar said that they had acted appropriately. “We seized the tractor trolley used to block traffic in Roorkee road. However, we refrained from using much force against them.”