ACP Manasvi Vashishta suspended a day after leading Delhi Police protest at headquarters
Delhi Police suspended ACP Manasvi Vashishta on Tuesday after she led about 150 officers in a protest. The lawyers' clash behind it and their demands.
Delhi Police suspended Assistant Commissioner of Police Manasvi Vashishta on Tuesday, 3 November, a day after she led around 150 police personnel in a rare protest outside the force’s own headquarters in New Delhi. The suspension was for “violation of discipline”, according to media reports; Delhi Police has not published the order.
Police officers protesting against their own department is unusual in India, which is why the story is trending across the country and drawing attention in Pakistan too.
What started it: the Shahdara clash
The dispute goes back to 23 October, when a scuffle at Shahdara police station in east Delhi left an advocate, Lalit Bansal, with a serious head injury, according to media reports. It led to another face-off at the station when lawyers came to demand action against those accused of attacking him. The lawyers said Vashishta, then the sub-divisional police officer in Gandhi Nagar, and Shahdara station house officer Inspector Arun Kumar threatened them.
Lawyers went on an open-ended strike and demanded action against both officers. On 28 October, Delhi Police transferred Vashishta to the Special Police Unit for Women and Children and moved Arun Kumar to the security unit. Lawyers’ bodies, including the Central Delhi Court Bar Association, had sought Vashishta’s suspension over remarks she allegedly made about lawyers.
The protest at Police Headquarters
On Monday, 2 November, officers including many women gathered at Gate No. 1 of Police Headquarters on Jai Singh Road, with placards and slogans such as “vardi ka apmaan nahi sahenge” (we won’t tolerate insult to the uniform). The protest lasted for hours. Vashishta told those present they needed to meet the Commissioner and asked for a standard procedure for such disputes and better security inside police stations.
A seven-member delegation led by her met Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar and handed over five demands:
- Restore Vashishta and Arun Kumar to their old postings.
- Act against the lawyers accused in the Shahdara clash.
- Post a dedicated force at court complexes.
- Register cases when more than five lawyers enter a police station and cause trouble.
- Act against lawyers who threaten police, including seeking cancellation of their licences, and file a chargesheet in the Shahdara case.
What Delhi Police said
Delhi Police said the Commissioner and senior officers heard personnel of different ranks, mainly about the dignity of the force and a proper system for service matters, and promised the concerns would be addressed. After talks with the Bar Council of Delhi and district bar associations, it said it would set up joint coordination committees at district and headquarters level.
A day later came the suspension. Neither Vashishta nor the protesting officers had responded publicly to it at the time of writing. Clashes between police and lawyers are familiar in Pakistan too, from Lahore’s cardiology hospital attack in 2019 to court-room scuffles, which is partly why the Delhi standoff is being watched here.
What to watch next is whether the coordination committee meets and whether the transfer orders, the cause of the protest, are revisited.
