A Bengaluru man has landed in hospital after the Bengaluru police allegedly chased him, manhandled him, causing him to dislocate his shoulder when they found him and his wife recording videos near Town Hall, where protests have been taking place against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Thousands of people took to the streets in the city despite section 144 being imposed in Bengaluru. Hundreds were detained by the police too. Protesters had started gathering around 11 am at Town Hall, and John* and his wife Vidhi* were at Unity building, which is about 300 metres away from there.
Vidhi was recording videos of police officials outside the Unity building’s campus forcing people to leave, and from going towards Town Hall.
“We were not even participating in the protest. It was just the two of us and our friend Roshan was standing some distance away. But as soon as the police officials passing by saw us, they asked what we were doing there and that we should leave. I asked what was wrong with what I was doing,” Vidhi recounts.
Roshan corroborates the same. “We were not even participating in the protest, neither were we standing in a group. But they just started shouting at us to leave.”
“As soon as this happened, the security personnel inside Unity building also started pushing us around. Then, some police officials sent some policewomen to take me away from there,” Vidhi adds.
In a video of shared with TNM by Vidhi, one can see a group of police officials ushering people away from Town Hall. Then, when they spot Vidhi, the camera shows a group of eight women police officials and one more person in civilian clothes, telling her and her husband to move along. Soon, a larger group of police officials, many of them in riot gear, are seen reiterating the same. They are standing at a higher elevation on the other side of the wall of Unity building.
In another video, one police man and some others in civilian clothes and a security personnel – presumably from Unity building – are seen ushering Vidhi and John out of the building. They can be seen complying, saying they are leaving. However, John says to not touch him or Vidhi. They are seen walking away when suddenly, a group of police officials come there. They catch up to Vidhi, John and Roshan, who is recording the video, and suddenly start forcing them to come with the police.
“They tried pushing me, and I said, I am going, I am going. But there were so many of them, at least 10,” Vidhi says. “There was one police official who just suddenly said to take us away. Then all of them started pulling me and John apart. We were standing together because we were surrounded. The policewomen were pulling me, and the other male cops were pulling John. We were not letting go of each other.”
Vidhi says that they were not even resisting and they were leaving only. “My husband was trying to get out of their grasp, and in the process his shirt tore. He fell on the pavement, and he just ran in another direction to get away, and the police chased him. In the pushing and pulling, his shoulder got dislocated.”
In another video, John can be seen with his shirt torn almost completely from the back, with one arm – the one where he dislocated his shoulder – hanging limp. “The police officials pulled his arm so hard that his shoulder got dislocated,” Roshan alleges.
Meanwhile Vidhi made her way to their friend’s house which was nearby, as did John. Once they reached there, she called up her friends and family, and decided to take John to the hospital.
TNM has a record from the hospital confirming that John’s shoulder had to be relocated.
*Names changed