Planned operation

Police action at the Ramlila Grounds was not carried out on the spur of the moment

Planned operation

Police action at the Ramlila Grounds was not carried out on the spur of the moment

There appeared to be a lot of method behind the madness involving the eviction of Baba Ramdev and his followers by Delhi police from the Ramlila Grounds. Huge police presence (about 5000 cops) was visible hours before Ramdev was forced out, Rapid Action Force (RAF) cops removing their name tags off their uniforms - all this and more clearly points to a message to the police from the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding what was to be done.

Photo finish: Policemen sit outside the Ramlila Grounds on Sunday
morning following the operation. Pic/Subhash Barolia

Perfect timing?
More than anything else, the time chosen for the operation could not have been a coincidence. At about 12.45 am Sunday the police's presence began to intensify in the Ram Lila ground. While the occupants thought that this might be because of security concerns, senior Delhi police officers, including the joint commissioner of police, northern range and deputy commissioners of police of several districts told Baba in the room backstage that the permission (which was only for the yoga camp and not hunger strike) for this gathering has been cancelled. Emotions started to change and protests followed.

Delhi police, on the other hand, knew all the while what they had to do. After their brief attempts to whisk Ramdev out of the Ramlila Grounds failed and he came on stage, his supporters formed security rings around the Baba refusing to accept the police's orders. Cops resorted to using tear gas shells and mild lathicharge to disperse the crowd.

Even though HRD minister Kapil Sibal denied anyone was injured and special commissioner of police, law and order, Dharmendra Kumar said there was no lathicharge, pictures suggest otherwise. Several people were found wounded after being allegedly hit by sticks and tear gas shells between 2 am to 4 am. "There was no lathicharge...only tear gas shells were used, that too when they started throwing stones," Kumar said addressing the press at Delhi police headquarters on Sunday.

He added that 39 policemen had been injured in the stone-pelting.The police's claim contradicts Ramdev's allegation that the police had used lathicharge, without provocation, against his supporters. Terming the police action as the "darkest night of my life", the yoga guru said that the police dragged and beat up his supporters, adding that he had not seen such atrocities before.

'Stop misbehaving'
Ramdev described how he wept and told "cops to stop misbehaving with women supporters", but to no avail. The yoga guru, who initially escaped the police dressed as a woman, said he was not wearing the white salwar-kurta because he wanted to and described how he spent hours hidden among women, his face covered with a dupatta.

But the police put the entire onus of the chain of events on the Baba claiming that he had been politely asked to leave the venue. But he tried to resist the police which compelled them to initiate action. When this MiD DAY reporter contacted the special commissioner of police, Dharmendra Kumar on phone, he said, "We had an input from IB that Baba could be eliminated by some anti-social group and therefore we sent our joint CP, Sudhir Yadav and DCP, Vivek Kishore to inform him about this and we cancelled his permission."

The big move
Delhi police officials said that Baba was finally taken away from the ground at about 3 am.
He was then taken to a guest house near Palam airport in the gypsy of Kamla Market SHO and five police personnel were with him, sources said. He was subsequently flown to Dehradun at about 11 am.
A couple of hours, following Baba's detention, reportedly saw the police cracking down on the people at the camp who were driven out of the Ramlila Grounds. Several later complained of their belongings going missing in the melee. The pandals and the arrangement were also demolished by cops to stop regrouping.u00a0