YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was picked up from his home in Gurugram on Saturday morning before he could join the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) programme at Jantar Mantar, and was released late at night. In a video message afterwards he made serious allegations. He claimed that it was not police but men in plain clothes who came for him, that they pushed his mother aside, entered the house and took him away, and that this was in fact an abduction, not a detention or an arrest.
Rathee had come to India from Germany to join the protest called by the CJP to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Questions were raised about whether he had the right to do so and whether he is an Indian citizen. Answering them in his video message on Sunday, he showed a passport, saying it was his Indian passport, that he is an Indian citizen and so has the right to join any protest or movement. He also compared Saturday’s events in Delhi with North Korea. “I want to say to Prime Minister Narendra Modi: do not frighten people so much that the fear itself runs out,” he said.
Police had detained Rathee at his home in Gurugram on Saturday. He alleges that they entered his house in the morning and took him from his bedroom, and that he suffered minor injuries to his hands and feet. Describing it, he said: “I was asleep. At about 7am my mother opened the door on seeing people moving about outside the house. Some people in ordinary clothes then pushed my mother, came in and went straight to my bedroom. I woke and had no chance to say or do anything. I was not even given time to put on my shoes. Then I was dragged out of the house. This is not a detention or an arrest. The way I was taken away was nothing but an abduction.”
Police have said nothing officially about where Rathee was held on Saturday. He claims: “I was taken from one police station to another. I was kept sitting for hours. I was not allowed to phone home or a lawyer. My phone itself was taken away. I was held for 22 to 23 hours at a stretch. What can I call this but abduction?”
He alleges that although he has been released he is being kept under watch. “At least 15 people are watching me so that I cannot leave the house. I have been placed under undeclared house arrest,” he said. He warned Modi by reminding him of the final fate of Hitler and Mussolini. Sonam Wangchuk had warned on Saturday that he would go on hunger strike if Rathee and the CJP’s leaders were not released within a day; Rathee thanked him too.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report