Night of shame continues…..

Pulok Chatterjee remarked, ‘The prime minister would not be willing to accept the proposal. He believes that the police have done their job well and having any inquiry against them is out of the question.’

Cabinet Secretary Seth said that since the proposal had come from the police chief himself, Chatterjee might consider speaking to the prime minister again.

Within a couple of hours, news reached me that the prime minister had acquiesced in our request, and soon orders were issued appointing a judicial committee, headed by Chief Justice (Retired) J.S. Verma, to study the existing laws dealing with crimes against women and to propose amendments, if any. Justice (Retired) Usha Mehra was to head another committee to conduct a judicial inquiry to determine if there had been any lapse on the part of the police or any other government agency in preventing the crime and responding to it.

Contrary to our expectations, even after the government’s announcement regarding the appointment of the two committees, the protesters refused to relent. India Gate and Raj Path continued to be under siege by the protestors. The Russian president Vladimir Putin was scheduled to visit Hyderabad House—only 75 metres away from India Gate— for a state banquet the following day, a fact everyone in the home and external affairs ministries was jittery about.

By the late afternoon of 23 December, the crowd at India Gate turned violent. Stones were hurled at the police and police barricades broken. The unruly elements, who had by then hijacked the protests, uprooted barricades being installed for the Republic Day Parade, which was to take place a month later, and made a bonfire of the wooden poles. They began to use the iron pipes of the barricades to attack policemen. They overturned an official car of Doordarshan—the government TV channel—and set it on fire. The police used hundreds of tear gas shells and fired water cannons repeatedly, but the crowds stood their ground. With the impending visit of the Russian president at the back of my mind, I was getting impatient.

To be continued……