Kejriwal, 200 Aam Aadmi Party supporters detained

Protest outside Sheila Dikshits house against demolition drive

Around 200 supporters of Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal were detained on Friday for protesting outside the residence of chief minister Shiela Dikshit against the demolition drive carried out at Shaheen Bagh in south Delhi, police said.

Kejriwal along with Manish Sisodia and Kumar Vishwas and around 200 party supporters reached Dikshit’s house on 3 Motli Lal Nehru Marg at around 8 am to stage a protest.
They were all detained around 12.30 pm, said a police officer.

“We have detained Kejriwal and his supporters from outside the chief minister’s house and have taken them to police station,” said the officer.

Families displaced

People whose properties were demolished were also present during the protest. Kejriwal claimed that around 500 families were displaced during the demolition drive.
He said the displaced people had proper documents for the land where they were living on.

“The government had announced that 1,600 colonies have been regularised and this colony is also one of them. Despite that, 500 houses were demolished,” he added.

Slogans

Kejriwal and his supporters demanded to meet to Dikshit but when they were not allowed to do so, they started raising slogans against the government and protested outside her house.

The protesters were then taken to Parliament Street police station and released after a few hours.

Refuting Kejriwal’s claims, a government official said the demolition drive was conducted on the orders of Delhi High Court to remove illegal structures erected on the Delhi Development Authority land.