Protesters may have provoked police: Bassi

Police detain protesting AISA and KYS members yesterday

New Delhi: Amid outrage over a video that shows police thrashing students and dragging women protesters by the hair, Delhi top cop B S Bassi yesterday appeared to defend his force suggesting that the protesters may have provoked the on-duty personnel.

Police detain protesting AISA and KYS members yesterday. Pic/PTI

"Right to protest coexists with what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said: The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's
nose begins," the police commissioner posted on microblogging website Twitter.

Referring to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's tweet that Delhi police was being used as RSS and BJP's ‘private army', Bassi said that he would try to clear the CM's ‘misgivings' when they meet next.

Although, Bassi attributed the quote to American Jurist Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, its origin is disputed as the adage is attributed to various legal luminaries.