The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, constituted a five-member high powered committee to probe into the excesses of the Police in connection with the CJP led NEET protest in New Delhi on 21st July.
Justice R Subhash Reddy is the chairperson of the committee. Rishi Kumar Shukla, former CBI director and LR Bishnoi, former DGP for Meghalaya, are also some of the members of this body.
The panel will be looking at incidents involving violence on the part of security forces in the march to Parliament. The marching experience was dubbed a “Sansad Chalo” and saw a faceoff between the protesters and the Rapid Action Force (RAF), Delhi Police, and security personnel.
The allegations state that police fired lathi, tear gas shells at the protesters who wanted to approach Parliament. Alleged use of pellet guns was another factor in the brief standoff.
The Supreme Court had earlier said on Tuesday that a video footage of and CCTV recordings of the violence will also be made available for scrutiny by the committee.
The committee is to be set up soon after the Delhi Police has stood clear of its action before the top court. Police have told that they did proceed with a “graded” response after the “peaceful” protest “gone amuck” with “some of the protesters were allegedly pushing their way through barricades and into Parliament”.
The police had deployed around 5,000 officers to control almost 30,000 protesters, spread across a distance of nearly three kilometres, Deputy Commissioner of Police Sachin Sharma said today.
Over 240 police and approximately 200 people and protesters sustained injuries in the clash, police said. They also held that lathis usage was allowed in maintaining law and order operations and had been targeted at the protesters who were involved in attacking the security personnel.
The police in Delhi also alleged that a criminal case has been filed against 2,873 persons at the protest one.
The Supreme Court, however, was told by the police that whether excessive force was deployed will be “fitly examined” by the court-appointed committee as it had told the court that it would cooperate with the investigation.