The Delhi Police will deploy 450-500 additional women paramilitary personnel ahead of the October 10 ‘Jantar Mantar 2.0’ protest by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), anticipating a large turnout of women protesters, police officials told The Indian Express.
At least five all-women companies of central forces will be deployed alongside Delhi Police personnel during the protest. The deployment will be part of around 11,000 additional central force personnel being brought in for the demonstration, taking the total strength of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel in the capital to around 26,000, according to police officials.
The deployment would be the largest concentration of central forces in Delhi since the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, officials said.
Around 5,000 Delhi Police personnel are currently deployed in the New Delhi district, where Jantar Mantar is located. The number could be increased to around 15,000 depending on the situation, officials said.
“There was large female involvement in the protests last time around. Even now, in the protests in the past few days, a large number of protesters are female. So, we are assuming that there will be more on October 10,” a police officer said.
The additional women personnel will be deployed in addition to women personnel from the Delhi Police.
Students warned against joining protests
The police are also reaching out to students ahead of the protest, particularly through meetings with residents’ welfare associations and paying guest accommodation owners in areas with large student populations.
A senior police officer said PG owners were being asked to inform students that Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) was in force in the New Delhi district.
“We are asking PG owners to inform students that Section 163 of the BNSS is in force in the New Delhi district. So, any protest in the area is illegal and students should consider that,” the officer said.
Police are also monitoring the city’s borders for large groups of people travelling towards Delhi ahead of Saturday’s protest.
Officials said particular attention would be paid to the Uttar Pradesh border along East Delhi and Shahdara, the Haryana border around Dwarka and the Rajasthan border along southwest Delhi.
“Any mass movement along the borders will be tracked. We will be putting up barricades for checks on routes going towards New Delhi, so that large groups of people don’t assemble,” another senior police officer said.
The heightened security comes amid a series of protests in Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The Election Commission has rejected the allegations and maintained that decisions on the exercise were taken unanimously.
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