Published Oct 12, 2026 | 4:11 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 12, 2026 | 4:11 PM
Detained protestors recall police brutality. (Screengrab/ X)
Synopsis: “Once inside the bus, they tried taking my phone, when I refused, they started hitting me, primarily on the head,” Thomas, a Caravan journalist recounted, adding, “Then they asked me to delete the videos, pointing to my camera, they said: “Do you get ‘desh bhakti’ with the camera”, then they tried to break the camera too.”
As the protests against Chief Election Commissioner and Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by Election Commission of India are continuing in Delhi, the protestors who have been detained by Delhi police recounted the horrors they encountered.
In a video shared on X, a detainee who was taken by the police to a community centre in Pandwalan Khurd, said, “We were at Connaught Place, the police was dragging a couple, and there were no women cops, when we went to help the couple, the women cops also arrived and detained us all.”
Further narrating the horror, he said, “A police person asked us to cooperate, and assured us that nothing will happen, we cooperated. In the bus, they called us one after the other and slapped, trashed, and kicked in the private parts. There was no place to run also.”
“They took us to an isolated area near Rajiv Chowk and made us sit in a row, as if they were about to shoot us. It was an isolated area, no media was allowed there.”
He further claimed that the police slapped a person and took his phone and password without his consent, “They took the mobile phone of one person, opened it and were going through his gallery. They claimed they were just deleting the protest videos, but clearly were breaching his privacy. I don’t know if they returned the phone.”
Further he said that the police refused to attend to a person, whose hand was fractured.
This literally gave me chills.
The testimony of a detainee who was taken by the police to a community centre in Pandwalan Khurd.
This is Horrific. https://t.co/V7jdZRH7gl
— Amit Pandey (@yuva_journalist) October 11, 2026
Caravan’s assistant multimedia producer, Ryan Thomas, also recounted the police brutality he along with the other protestors encountered at Connaught Place.
“I was at Connaught Place at around 6 PM, where I was following some protestors who were being detained, when a police officer saw and questioned what I was doing,” Thomas said, adding they asked if he also wants to be detained.
“Soon four or five other police men started shoving me, I showed them the press card, but they pushed me into the bus.”
“Once inside the bus, they tried taking my phone, when I refused, they started hitting me, primarily on the head,” Thomas recounted, adding, “Then they asked me to delete the videos, pointing to my camera, they said: “Do you get ‘desh bhakti’ with the camera”, then they tried to break the camera too.”
Further recounting, he added, “Then they handed me over to another group of police, I asked them not to hit me, as I was cooperating, just then a police officer slapped me. They kept slapping me, and pressuring me to delete the footage.”
Thomas further said that when he refused to delete the footage, the police officers threatened him with a the end of a gun, “They poked me in the stomach with the end of a gun, and the stick. They also threatened me to take to a detention centre.”
“Only when I pretended to delete the footage is when they let me go.”
The Delhi Police detained and brutally beat up The Caravan’s assistant multimedia producer, Ryan Thomas, on 11 October. Ryan was covering the protests against Gyanesh Kumar and SIR, which the government has tried to quash with an unprecedented police mobilisation in the capital, with multiple trains and metros halted, and with internet shut down across central Delhi.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court had directed that, among other things, journalists “shall not be hindered in discharge of their professional duties in any manner whatsoever.” Police tried to seize Ryan phone and force him to delete footage he had recorded.
Video by Amrita Singh (@singhamritaa), Puja Sen (@psen9) and Shahid Tantray (@shahidtantray)
— The Caravan (@thecaravanindia) October 12, 2026
Another protester, who also alleged torture by the police, named police officer Ankit Kasana, who perpetuated most violence.
Recounting a case of profiling on the basis of religion, the protestor said, “That police officer claimed I was a muslim, when I said my name, Dharmendra Goswami, he asked me to remove my pants. I told them I’m a brahmin. They also asked me to laugh when they were hitting another detainee.”
It’s done DP ,
Mental Torture a Brahmin boy https://t.co/isBCyH0pXp— Anuradha Sharma (@XIIOXIIOXIIOX) October 11, 2026
(Edited by Sumavarsha)
