Delhi violence: A group of men raise slogans at Khajoori-Bhajanpura road in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express Photo: Praveen Khanna)

OVER 100 members of the All India Students Association (AISA) and the Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) from Punjab were detained by the Delhi Police Tuesday morning as they arrived in the national capital to protest at Ramlila Maidan against the recent riots. All of them were released in the evening.

These activists from Punjab have been visiting Delhi in the recent past to support the ongoing protest at Shaheen Bagh.

Binder Alakh, AISA member from Mansa, said, “We reached Delhi on Monday night and slept at Gurdwara Sheeshganj. Tuesday morning, we reached Ramlila Maidan. We had not been given permission to organise a rally, so the members decided to carry out a march from Ramlila Maidan till Jantar Mantar. However, we were not even allowed to gather and police detained us soon after we reached Ramlila Maidan.”

Over 100 persons had gone from Mansa, Faridkot, Bathinda. They were kept at Rajiv Gandhi stadium till 6.30 pm and later released. Sukhdarshan Natt, RYA member, said,”This was not our first visit to Delhi. Earlier too, our members had gone. It was a peaceful protest and we went to express our anger against riots which killed many in Delhi.”

Groups of protesters from Punjab, representing various organisations, have been visiting Delhi to support anti-CAA protests since January 15. On February 5, over 800 men and women of Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahan) had been stopped by Delhi Police ahead of Shaheen Bagh protest site and were told to stay at a nearby gurdwara overnight.

Next morning at about noon, they were allowed to move towards Shaheen Bagh. Natt said that apart from AISA and RYA, members of Kirti Kisan Union, CPI(L), who had also gone to Delhi, were detained. He said,”Our fight is to push government to take CAA back and we are against NRC and NPR. We will continue our support to protesters. We condemn Delhi Police action against our members today.”