Demonstration at AI conference: Delhi Police arrested three Youth Congress workers from Gwalior

New Delhi. Delhi Police has arrested seven people, including three activists, from Gwalior in connection with the shirtless protest by Indian Youth Congress workers (IYC) at the ‘AI Impact Summit’ last week and charged them with various charges including promoting enmity between different groups and making statements prejudicial to national integration. A police officer gave this information on Monday.

Police said that the accused named Jitendra Yadav, Raj Gurjar and Ajay Kumar were arrested from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, taking the total number of arrests in this case to seven. Police have also detained Hrithik alias Monty Shukla, general secretary of IYC’s Uttar Pradesh unit, from Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh, while IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib is also being interrogated.

The police have added sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc. and doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony) and 197 (accusations and statements prejudicial to national integration) of the Indian Judicial Code (BNS) and several more sections. Under these sections, there can be imprisonment of up to three years, fine or both.

Last Friday, during the ‘AI Impact Summit’ at Bharat Mandapam, a group of Indian Youth Congress workers took off their shirts and protested in an exhibition hall. They were roaming around with T-shirts on which slogans were printed against the government and the India-US trade agreement. After this, he was removed from there by the security personnel present at the venue. Delhi Police had arrested four Youth Congress workers on Friday itself.

Officials said the case is also being investigated from the angle of a wider conspiracy. This issue gave rise to political controversy. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called it “a shameful act to tarnish India’s image on the global stage”, while the Indian Youth Congress defended it as a “peaceful” protest aimed at protecting national interests. According to the police, on Friday, Youth Congress workers entered the lobby area of ​​hall number five and started raising slogans by removing the T-shirts they were wearing below or holding them in their hands.

According to police sources, the protesters had registered online to obtain QR codes to enter the venue. The accused had earlier planned to stick stickers on black umbrellas and secretly take them to Bharat Mandapam. However, he later realized that the black umbrellas might attract the attention of the security personnel posted at the entrance, so he changed his plan and got the stickers printed on T-shirts and wore them under his shirt, a source said.

After entering inside, he took off the shirt he was wearing over the T-shirt. “PM is compromised”, “India-US trade agreement” and “Epstein files” were written on his T-shirt. Sources claimed that the protesters also scuffled with some police officers on duty and the entire incident is being investigated. Investigators are also probing the financial transactions behind the protests, including who funded the slogans printed on the T-shirts.