Delhi Police Must End Crackdown on Anti-SIR Protesters; Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Must Resign, IAMC Demands
WASHINGTON, DC — October 04, 2026
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) condemns the government crackdown in New Delhi, where police have detained nearly 900 people for attempting to demonstrate against the removal of more than 133 million names from India’s voter rolls. The mass detentions, restrictions on access to a designated protest site, and repeated arrests of protesters represent a serious assault on the rights to peaceful assembly and political expression.
IAMC calls for an immediate end to the crackdown and reiterates its demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, who heads the Election Commission of India. The unprecedented scale of voter removals, serious questions surrounding the SIR process, and reported objections from Kumar’s fellow Election Commissioners demand independent scrutiny and accountability.
Since last Friday, Delhi police have sealed off Jantar Mantar, the one site in India’s capital officially set aside for public protest, with barricades and buses, and detained protesters before they could reach it. Students, opposition leaders, activists and journalists have been dragged into police vehicles and held for hours. To justify the crackdown, authorities have invoked Section 163 of India’s criminal procedure law, an emergency power meant for imminent threats to public order, which rights groups say is now routinely used to ban peaceful assembly outright.
On October 2, police detained more than 700 people, among them Atishi, a former Chief Minister of Delhi; Sanjay Singh, a member of India’s upper house of Parliament; Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Neha Bora, president of the national student union AISA; and political scientist Yogendra Yadav. Atishi said protesters were hauled into buses and held at police stations. Police have since filed three criminal cases against Friday’s protesters. On Saturday, more than 150 were detained, and three women journalists accused police officers of sexually harassing them as they reported on the protest.
On Sunday, police detained Bora again, along with Saurabh Bharadwaj, Delhi chief of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), legislator Sanjeev Jha and at least 25 party workers. Bora’s union alleges she was taken away in an unmarked private vehicle with no female officer present, in breach of Indian law. Bharadwaj says police turned him upside down while detaining him to keep the act off camera. Those released after hours in custody are being detained again each time they return to protest.
The protests center on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a nationwide re-verification of voter lists by the Election Commission of India that has struck more than 133 million names from draft rolls, roughly one in seven voters, and nearly a third of Delhi’s electorate. An investigation by The Indian Express, a leading Indian newspaper, found that Kumar’s two fellow Election Commissioners objected on record at least 14 times to SIR decisions taken without their knowledge. Amnesty International has called the detentions “a blatant attack on the rights to liberty and freedom of peaceful assembly.”
“For three straight days, Delhi Police have hunted down, dragged away and detained citizens for doing nothing more than defending their right to vote,” said Mohammed Jawad, President of IAMC. “When a government barricades a designated protest site, repeatedly arrests those who try to reach it, and turns emergency powers against peaceful dissent, it is not protecting democracy, it is suppressing it. More than 133 million names have disappeared from draft voter rolls under a process overseen by Chief Election Commissioner Kumar, even as his fellow commissioners reportedly objected to key decisions. Kumar must resign. The SIR must be halted and independently investigated. And every Indian must be free to defend their vote without being dragged into a police van.”
IAMC calls for an immediate end to pre-emptive detentions and restrictions on peaceful assembly at Jantar Mantar; the withdrawal of criminal cases arising from peaceful protest and the release of anyone still detained; and an independent investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of women journalists and excessive use of force against protesters, with accountability for officers found responsible.
IAMC further calls for the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, an immediate halt to the SIR pending independent scrutiny, and an independent constitutional inquiry into its conduct and implementation. Authorities must ensure that every eligible voter wrongfully excluded from the electoral rolls is promptly restored.
The United States and other democratic governments should publicly and in bilateral conversations raise both the crackdown on peaceful protesters and concerns over mass disenfranchisement with the Indian government. The right to vote, the right to protest, and the right to demand accountability from institutions overseeing elections are fundamental democratic freedoms and must be protected.
