A recently surfaced video from a protest organised by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar has brought new attention to discussions between organisers and the Delhi Police moments before a planned march. The footage shows senior police officials expressing concerns about inadequate crowd management and the potential for the gathering to become unmanageable.
Information was available with The Chenab Times indicating that the video captures New Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Sachin Sharma and Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Deepak Purohit in conversation with CJP spokespersons Saurabh Das and Abhishek Ranka. In the exchange, the officers highlighted a perceived lack of arrangements for regulating the crowd and cautioned that the Jantar Mantar venue was not adequately equipped to handle a large gathering without proper planning and sufficient volunteer support.
According to the police officers present in the video, the organisers had not deployed an adequate number of volunteers to assist with managing the crowd, despite repeated requests from the police department. DCP Sharma is heard in the footage emphasizing the need for a minimum number of volunteers to help regulate the gathering and prevent any potential untoward incidents.
“I have been requesting you for quite some time,” DCP Sharma is heard stating to the CJP organisers in the video.
The DCP further warned of the presence of “criminal elements” within the assembled crowd, underscoring the increased importance of effective crowd management. The officers indicated that without sufficient volunteers on the ground to assist, the police alone would face significant challenges in controlling the gathering should the situation escalate.
The police representatives stated that they had repeatedly cautioned the organisers that without corrective steps being taken, the growing crowd could become increasingly difficult to manage. These concerns, they explained, were communicated on July 19 and July 20 as the number of people gathering at Jantar Mantar continued to increase. They also conveyed that they had briefed the organisers on typical crowd behaviour in such scenarios and the necessity of implementing preventive measures.
The emergence of this video comes at a time when protests at Jantar Mantar have been under considerable political and public scrutiny. The demonstrations had attracted large numbers of participants over several days, leading to a significant increase in security deployment by the Delhi Police.
The newly released footage focuses attention on pre-protest discussions, where senior police officers appear to have provided advance warnings to the organisers regarding volunteer deployment, crowd control strategies, and potential law and order challenges that might arise.
The Chenab Times News Desk
