SC to examine Delhi Police's crackdown on Ramdev supporters

SC-RAMDEV
New Delhi, Jun 19 (PTI) The Indian Supreme Court will
Monday examine the Delhi Police's affidavit on the pre-dawn
swoop at Ramlila Maidan here in the Indian capital city New
Delhi denying allegations that it had used force to evict yoga
guru Ramdev and his supporters from the site.
A bench of justices P Sathasivam and A K Patnaik is
also likely to take up a petition filed by advocate Ashok
Agarwal seeking direction to the City Police Commissioner to
deposit the 42 CCTV cameras allegedly seized from the site
after the swoop.
However, in an affidavit filed before the court, the
city police claimed that no force was used against the
protesters but only eight teargas shells were fired on
Ramdev's supporters after they turned violent and started
pelting stones on the cops.
Justifying its action, police said the authorities had
allowed permission to Ramdev to use the ground only to hold
yoga camp and not for any other purpose.
It said that instead of holding yoga camp, Ramdev was
instigating the crowd during his fast on the issue of
corruption and black money at the ground where more than
20,000 people had gathered.
Delhi Police had filed the response following a
direction of the apex court which took suo motu cognisance of
the crackdown and had directed it to explain why it resorted
to such action against Ramdev and his supporters.
However, advocate Agarwal alleged that after the swoop
police forcibly took away the hard disk and 42 CCTV cameras
from the residence of Vipin Mittal from Savitri Colony at
Malviya Nagar, who is the owner of 'Sai' Company dealing with
CCTV cameras.
He claimed the cameras were seized by police to
destroy vital evidence relating to the alleged brutal
crackdown.
Agarwal also sought an inquiry by a Special
Investigation Team and adequate compensation to 51-year-old
woman Raj Bala who was critically injured in the alleged
police lathicharge. PTI RB
SSB