Kejriwal to court arrest to voice against harassment to supporters

Kejriwal told reporters here that he and his fellow activists would go to the Parliament Street police station to ask police to arrest them.

"The police has been harassing our supporters. They call about 40 to 50 of our supporters to the police station and detain them till evening for protesting against the coal blocks allocation," Kejriwal said.

Anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal. File pic

"Section 144 was used unconstitutionally against us and we are prepared to face the consequences," he added.

Section 144 prohibits the gathering of five or more people at a site.

Cases of rioting have been registered against six IAC members -- Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Manish Sisodia, Neeraj Kumar, Kumar Vishwas and Gopal Rai -- as well as several unidentified people for holding a protest outside the houses of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Aug 26.

An IAC volunteer said that several volunteers were daily being taken to the police station for the past nine days for protesting outside the houses of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Aug 26.

"For the past nine days since Aug 26, IAC volunteers are being taken to three police station Mandir Marg, Tughlaqabad and Parliament Street police stations and they are detained till evening for participating in the protest," Bibhav Kumar, an IAC member, told IANS.

"Kejriwal and five others whose names are in the FIR will go to the Parliament Street police station by 11 a.m., request them to arrest them and put them in jail. They will demand that volunteers detained during Aug 26 protest should not be subjected to harassment in the name of collecting evidence," Kumar said.

Taking no chances, the Delhi Police have deployed hundreds of policemen outside the Parliament Street police station.u00a0