Unageing fervour
On December 19, around 10am, five policemen were stationed outside the house of
On December 19, around 10am, five policemen were stationed outside the house of
On December 19, around 10am, five policemen were stationed outside the house of
On December 19, around 10am, five policemen were stationed outside the house of
On December 19, around 10am, five policemen were stationed outside the house of Sarwan Ram Darapuri in Indira Nagar, Lucknow, putting him under house arrest. A former inspector general of Uttar Pradesh Police, Darapuri, 77, is a social activist and a cancer patient. He posted a picture of himself holding up a sign ‘Save Citizenship’ in front of his house and captioned it: “Protest continues even under house arrest”.
Next day, around 11:45am, a police jeep came to pick him up; the police wanted him at the Ghazipur thana (police station) for questioning. His son Ved Kumar went to the thana to inquire, but he could not find him there. He then started calling top police officers to trace his father’s whereabouts. He was told that Darapuri had been at the Ghazipur thana itself. Kumar went back to the thana and met him, and him gave medicines and food. “At 8:30pm, my father called saying that he had been taken to a different thana [in Hazratganj] and he needed some warm clothes,” he said. “I went with an advocate and some friends, but he was not there. The police said that my father, despite being at home, had been inciting people over the telephone.” Around 1:30am, Kumar received another call that his father had been brought back to the Hazratganj thana. Darapuri was later sent to Lucknow jail.
Mohammed Shoaib, a 72-year-old advocate, had similar experiences. On December 19, a police van was stationed outside his home in Old Lucknow. “At 11:45pm, some policemen came and said they wanted to take him for questioning, and that he would be back in two hours,” said his wife, Malika Bi. “For the next two days I knew nothing of him.” Malika messaged the senior superintendent of police requesting that she be allowed to send medicines for her husband’s heart ailments. Two policemen came and took the medicines.
On December 22, when Malika finally met her husband in Lucknow jail, his foremost concern was about a 20-year-old boy from West Bengal who had been arrested for protesting. The boy was a waiter in a restaurant in Lucknow. “He [Shoaib] gave me the contact of the boy’s elder brother and asked that I tell his junior [lawyer] to speak to him,” said Malika.
Shoaib and Darapuri are fellow activists and friends. They had made a number of phone calls to each other on December 19, as they were worried about the protests turning violent. They also made calls to the street protestors to maintain peace. Now, both are charged with inciting violence and are lodged together in jail, separated from the other protestors.