The police in Uttar Pradesh continued to exert a tight leash on Dalit assertion as 31 Dalit activists, led by retired IPS officer SR Darapuri, were arrested from the UP press club in Lucknow today. They had gathered there to address a press conference on the police crackdown on Dalits protesters from Gujarat at the Jhansi railway station on Sunday evening, with police claiming the preemptive step was taken as their presence in Lucknow could disturb the peace.

The 45-member group was carrying a 125kg bar of soap with the image of Buddha carved on it, which they want to gift to state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to allegedly “cleanse his mentality towards Dalits”. This was a response to reports of officials distributing shampoo and soap to Musahar Dalit families at a village in Kushinagar a day before their meeting with the chief minister on May 28.

The police claim they arrested Darapuri and the others for allegedly taking out a procession without obtaining prior permission from the Lucknow district administration. “The arrested persons were staging a protest in support of those detained at Jhansi railway station on Sunday. It was an unlawful act as they had not obtained the permission from the district administration,” said Vikas Chandra Tripathi, the Additional Superintendent of Police, Lucknow. He said that eight people were arrested from the Press Club while 28 persons were arrested from the Chowk area.

The arrested activists have been booked under Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, i.e. arrest to prevent the commission of cognizable offences and detained at the Kaiserbagh police station.

Haseeb Siddiqui, president of the UP Working Journalists’ Union, said the police did not raid the press club and that Darapuri had booked the club for the press conference on Monday.  “SR Darapuri and other activists were arrested from outside the press club. I was not there at the time of their arrest and I will soon get all the details then share with you,” he said.

Darapuri, the former Additional DGP and president of the UP Dalit Sangathan, said that the BJP government headed by Adityanath had let loose a reign of terror against Dalits ever since it came to power in March. “It was a peaceful programme with not even a remote possibility of any threat to public order, as a Dalit group from Gujarat wanted to give a message of peace and harmony–Bhagwan Buddha—to Yogi Adityanath”, he said. “The press conference was scheduled at 2 pm at UP press club where Dalit activists from Gujarat were also invited to participate,” he added.

Most of the Dalit group members from Gujarat were detained at Jhansi. A few reached Lucknow. Martin Makawana, an activist from Gujarat, said, “Soap and shampoo were distributed to Dalits ahead of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s visit to the village. We wanted to tell UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that it’s not the Dalits who need to cleanse their body but the chief minister needs to cleanse his medieval mindset.”