Nadeem Khan, a prominent civil rights activist, was placed under effective house arrest at his Delhi office on Tuesday morning as police sought to prevent him from attending a planned protest at Jantar Mantar against attacks on places of worship and the exclusion of citizens through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
According to a statement circulating from the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), where Khan serves as national secretary, police arrived at his office at around 9:30 am and kept him confined there, preventing him from leaving to join the demonstration. The action came after the Monitoring Committee of Indian Muslims had given a call for the protest, planned for 3 pm at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.
Khan, also the founder of the group United Against Hate, has said the police action was blatantly illegal, and accused Delhi Police of keeping him under what he called office arrest specifically to stop him from attending the protest.
This is not the first time Khan has run into confrontation with the police. He was previously booked by Delhi Police over a video the force said risked promoting enmity between communities, and the Delhi High Court had to step in last year to grant him protection from arrest while that case proceeded. He was also named, without being formally accused in court, in connection with unrest last year in Uttar Pradesh linked to the “I Love Muhammad” protests, though he was not among those arrested in that case.
Tuesday’s action fits into a broader pattern of friction between Delhi Police and protesters gathering at Jantar Mantar in recent days.
Just last Friday, police had moved in with the Rapid Action Force to disperse a separate gathering at the same site, where activists, students and opposition leaders had assembled to demand accountability from the Election Commission of India and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the conduct of the SIR exercise.
Several journalists covering that protest alleged they were manhandled and detained, with the Press Club of India later demanding a police apology.
The SIR process itself has become a flashpoint over the past few weeks, with critics, including several opposition parties and civil society groups, alleging that the revision exercise risks excluding genuine voters, particularly from minority and marginalised communities, from the electoral rolls.
Tuesday’s planned protest sought to link that concern with what organisers describe as a pattern of attacks on religious sites, under the banner “Protest Against Repeated Attacks on Places of Worship.”
As of now, there has been no official statement from Delhi Police explaining the legal basis for confining Khan to his office or confirming whether he has since been released. The detention is likely to add to concerns, already raised by rights groups after Friday’s incident, about the space available for peaceful protest and press coverage of demonstrations in the capital.
