It’s an assault on democracy and constitutional dissent, say Association for Protection of Civil Rights and Karwan-e-Mohabbat, joint organisers of the event
NEW DELHI — Hindutva mob forcibly stormed into the Constitution Club here on Tuesday and disrupted a public tribunal titled “People’s Tribunal on Assam: Evictions, Detentions and the Right to Belong.”
The tribunal, jointly convened by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) and Karwan-e-Mohabbat, was meant to amplify voices from Assam, where communities are facing dispossession, disenfranchisement, and systematic denial of belonging. The event was attended by survivors, community representatives, former judges, senior bureaucrats, and human rights defenders.
The smooth proceedings were disturbed by the marauding group which created chaos with raising aggressive and communal slogans. The slogans included “Goli Maro Saalon ko, Desh ke gaddaron ko”, “Jute Maro Saalon ko”, “Jai Shri Ram”, and “Har Har Mahadev”. The shouting created panic among panellists and the audience, drowning out testimonies of survivors.
The intruders carried placards and flashcards with inflammatory messages and surrounded the panellists, Justice Iqbal Ansari, Shri Gopal K Pillai, Jawahar Sircar, Wajahat Habibullah, Syeda Hameed, Harsh Mander, Prashant Bhushan, Taison Hussain, Imtiaz Hussain, Prof Apoorvanand and Fawaz Shaheen, who were seated on the dais.
The mob was led, by their own admission and corroborated by multiple witnesses, by Vishnu Gupta of the Hindu Sena and Chaudhary Parvez Alam Baliyan of Muzaffarnagar, UP, along with their associates whose faces are clearly identifiable in video footage. As per media reports, Vishnu Gupta and his group have a long history of disruption and criminal conduct, with multiple FIRs against them for assault, vandalism, and spreading misinformation.
Gupta was arrested in 2011 for assaulting senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan inside his chamber, detained in 2015 for making a false beef complaint at Kerala House, and again arrested in 2016 for vandalising the Pakistan International Airlines office in Delhi, to name a few.
Chaudhary Baliyan reportedly shares close ties with Assam chief minister and has posted several photographs with him on social media.
Equally alarming was the failure of institutions tasked with ensuring security. The Constitution Club security staff appeared only 15 minutes after the mob had stormed the hall, and their behaviour suggested willful negligence, acting as though they did not recognise that the mob had come to attack the event.
The Delhi Police arrived nearly an hour later, long after the damage had been done. For that entire duration, survivors from Assam, respected panel members, and citizens were left vulnerable to intimidation, harassment, and the imminent threat of assault.
A detailed police complaint has been lodged at Sansad Marg Police Station by Harsh Mander (Karwan-e-Mohabbat) and Nadeem Khan (APCR), listing offences under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
