Former Delhi CM Atishi says detained by police; ‘removed’ from protest site at Bhoomiheen ‘not detained’, says DCP

from Kalkaji.” However, DCP (Southeast) Hemant Tiwari said, “She (Atishi) has not been detained. She has been removed from the spot under Section 65 of the Delhi Police Act.”

Police said they were checking the situation at the site in view of the demolition to be carried out on Wednesday, when Atishi reached the Bhoomiheen Camp and instigated people, asking them not to vacate. After repeated reminders not to do so, officers had to remove her from the location to avoid unnecessary commotion, they said.

The party said in a statement, “The police, already deployed in large numbers to suppress the protest, manhandled the former Delhi Chief Minister, and then forcibly removed her from the site and took her to Baba Haridas Nagar police station…”

AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal in a post on X, said, “The BJP government is destroying homes of the poor all over Delhi, making people homeless. When the Aam Aadmi Party stands with the poor and raises their voice, our leaders are arrested. Today the Leader of Opposition Atishi was taken into custody — this is dictatorship…”

At Bhoomiheen Camp, after she met the residents, Atishi told reporters, “BJP wants to demolish all jhuggis in Delhi. Today they are taking me to jail because I raised my voice for jhuggi dwellers… BJP will never return to power in Delhi.”

She also asked why the Delhi government had not challenged the High Court order on demolition in the Supreme Court.

Last Friday (June 6), while deciding pleas by 417 residents of Bhoomiheen Camp who sought the court’s protection from demolition of their settlements as well as rehabilitation, the HC had said, “Encroachers cannot claim the right to continue occupying public land pending the resolution of their rehabilitation claims under the applicable policy, as this would unduly impede public projects.”

Reasoning that the right to seek rehabilitation, as it is, is not an absolute constitutional entitlement “available to encroachers such as themselves”, Justice Dharmesh Sharma added that “determination of eligibility for rehabilitation is a separate process from the removal of encroachers from public land.”

Of the over 400-odd petitioners, the high court eventually granted some relief to around 30.