Freedom Park will continue as sole protest venue in Bengaluru: Police chief | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: City police commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh has made it clear Freedom Park will continue to be the lone protest venue of the metropolis. He said a different venue can only be designated if there is an issue with Freedom Park. “That is, only if the area is not sufficient. As of now, Freedom Park is adequate, and there is no intention to change it,” he told TOI.City police, in a 2021 order, had restricted protests in the city to Freedom Park after demonstrations by anganwadi and road transport corporation (RTC) workers caused inconvenience to people and led to traffic snarls. Until that order, protests used to be staged around Town Hall, Banappa Park, and Maurya Circle.However, there have been a series of complaints from civic activists that people are being denied their right to protest effectively by police, limiting protests to a single venue. Many activists feel confining demonstrations to one spot minimises attention to their issues, making the protests ineffective. The groups who want to protest have to congregate at Freedom Park as there is only a single venue for public protests. During the recent Devanahalli farmers’ protest, hundreds of people had to travel over 35km to make their voices heard. “We have been demanding that the police commissioner’s order be withdrawn. You can’t restrict protests to one area like Freedom Park. Even when the Devanahalli issue was ongoing, they said farmers had to come to Freedom Park if they wanted to protest,” said Maitreyi Krishnan of Horaatada Hakkigagi Janandolana, a movement advocating citizens’ right to protest.Lawyer Vinay Sreenivasa said there is no standing high court order on the issue. “When the petition was disposed of in Aug 2022, the high court directed the authorities to comply with the new order passed by the police commissioner in 2021,” he said, adding that a new directive by the police chief could resolve the issue. “Section 4.1 of the order states that depending on the situation, the commissioner of police can also designate any other suitable place in the city for protests.“Despite the 2021 order, political parties and functionaries have held protests outside Freedom Park. Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya was given permission to protest at 9.30am on July 5 at Lalbagh. On the same day, Congress activists staged a protest at the BMRCL office in Shantinagar.Rajkumar Duggar, another civic activist, questioned the different rules in place. “If I want to protest in front of Vidhana Soudha and if I am a politician, I’m able to do it. Every year we see this happening, so when people’s representatives can protest wherever, why can’t people do so?” he asked.
