Delhi Police use water cannons to disperse protesting Cong workers
Darpan News Desk IANS, 21 Jul, 2022 12:31 PM
New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) Hundreds of Congress workers were staging protests at different locations in the national capital over their party's interim President Sonia Gandhi being summoned by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday.
Outside the party headquarters at 24, Akbar Road, the Delhi Police used water cannons to disperse the protesters who were trying to cross the barricades placed by the police.
Former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said his party is protesting the ED summons to Sonia Gandhi. "The AJL-Young India transaction is recorded in the books of account, the returns filed by the two companies and in the Income Tax returns. All that the ED wants to know can be found in the records," he said.
He further said the Income Tax case is pending before SC. "ED is not higher than the SC. What is that the ED wants to 'investigate' that will not be examined by the SC? ED is overreaching the SC and trying to intimidate the Congress party. The Congress party will not bow down to the intimidation," Chidambaram said.
The Congress party workers were seen pushing the barricades.
Meanwhile, as a preventive action, the police detained several party leaders including Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, former Union Minister P. Chidambaram, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Sachin Pilot, Ajay Maken, Deependra Hooda, IYC president B. Srinivas among several others.
The party leaders alleged that the police were not allowing them to even protest against the government and are continuously harassing them.
The detained party leaders were taken to Utsav Sadan in Kingsway Camp police lines.
The two leaders reviewed the situation, especially in the city of Kharkiv where many Indian students are stuck, and discussed the safe evacuation of Indian nationals from the conflict areas, an MEA statement said.
Officials said the administration was in touch with the families of 32 students belonging to the Jammu division who are stranded in Ukraine. Officials said nine evacuation flights have so far brought back around 2,000 Indians stranded in Ukraine since February 26.
Bhullar was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011 in the 1993 Delhi bomb blasts case. In March 2014, however, the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment owing to his ill health.
An official in Guwahati said that the Assam government so far prepared a list of 160 such students and the process of evacuating them has been going on in coordination with the External Affairs Ministry.
Addressing a virtual press conference from Romania, he said that over 4,000 students will be evacuated in the next three days. He said that six flights were operated from Bucharest to India on Wednesday.
