Three days after nearly 70 to 80 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers and leaders were arrested for storming the state BJP headquarters in Gandhinagar, the Surat police Thursday detained around 78 AAP and 30 Congress workers as they were on their way to submit a memorandum to Surat Collector Ayush Oak in the paper leak case. All the detainees were kept at a community hall at the police headquarters in Athwalines for the day, before releasing them in the evening. Police arrested around 19 AAP leaders and workers, including Surat Municipal Corporation's leader of opposition Dharmesh Bhanderi and councillors, who gathered outside the district collectorate at Athwalines to submit the memorandum Thursday morning. They were stopped at the main gate of the collectorate and detained. Meanwhile, two AAP councillors managed to go inside the premises and hand over the memorandum to the collector. “We went to give a memorandum to the district collector and were detained. We requested the police to allow us but they remained firm. In the memorandum handed over to the district collector, we have demanded that the AAP leaders arrested in Gandhinagar should be released immediately. Actual culprits in the incident should be arrested. We have also demanded that the government should suspend (Gujarat Subordinate Service Selection Board chairman) Asit Vora and legal actions be taken against him. The state government should give a compensation of Rs 50,000 to each student who had appeared for the exams,” said Bhanderi. In addition, around 59 AAP leaders and workers, protesting at Chowk Bazaar near the Mahatma Gandhi statue, were also detained for protesting without police permission. Later, Congress leaders, led by Surat Congress president Naishad Desai, also gathered outside the office of the district collector to submit a memorandum. However, the cops deployed at the spot refused them entry and detained 30 Congress leaders and workers, including Desai. The Congress leaders were released in the evening. “We went to the collector's office to give the memorandum. We were treated like antisocial elements and criminals. We requested the cops to allow only two leaders to go inside but they refused even that," said Desai.
