Many of the protesters are mothers who were accompanied by children. They said they had gathered to demand urgent government action to ensure clean air. The worsening air quality in Delhi has prompted scores of people to stage a protest at the India Gate on Sunday, with the protestors including parents and environmental activists.
Many of the protesters are mothers who were accompanied by children. They said they had gathered to demand urgent government action to ensure clean air in the national capital. “We want to meet our elected officials. We had sought an appointment with the chief minister but were refused. So many parents are here because their children are suffering. Every third child already has damaged lungs; they will live nearly 10 years less than those growing up in cleaner air,”environmentalist Bhavreen Khandari said.
The protest took place on a day when Delhiites woke up to another day of toxic air, as pollution levels remained alarmingly high. Data from the Air Quality Early Warning System on early morning showed an AQI of 392, while multiple areas crossed the 400 mark, ranking the capital among the worst-polluted cities nationwide. Another protest, against the recent Supreme Court judgement on relocation of stray dogs from institutional areas, schools, offices, etc, was also happening at India Gate at the same time.
According to police, several protesters were detained for assembling without permission. “There was no permission to hold a protest at the India Gate. To maintain law and order and ensure there is no obstruction in security arrangements, some people were detained,” a police officer said.
DCP (New Delhi) Devesh Kumar Mahla said the detentions were preventive in nature. “Only Jantar Mantar is designated as a protest site where permission can be sought by following the due procedure,” he added. The opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has backed the protest against Delhi’s deteriorating air quality, with party leader Priyanka Kakkar criticising the city’s BJP government.
She said that the Rekha Gupta government is “not accepting that there is pollution” in the national capital. “People of Delhi are angry because the government of the national capital is in denial. They are not accepting that there is pollution. The BJP government should have been with the people on the ground and not manipulating the data,” Kakkar said.
Delhi AAP chief Saurabh Bharadwaj said that Sunday’s protest had been called by some members of civil society, describing it as “non-political.”
“We are glad that a non-political protest has been organised on an issue like pollution. Many well-educated and knowledgeable people have joined it. Why have they joined? Because there is now a trust deficit among the people when it comes to the government. Major institutions like the DPCC, CPCB, CAQM, and IMD are fudging data and manipulating figures. When a government itself tampers with data, it creates a trust deficit, and that’s why the intellectual community has taken to the streets today. That’s what is alarming. Pollution has existed for the last 10 years, but what’s alarming now is that the government is manipulating the data,” Bharadwaj said.
