Congress leader Rahul Gandhi ended his over five-hour dharna outside Parliament Street police station after Delhi Police registered an FIR over pellet injuries suffered by student Sahil Lochab on July 20.
Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader ended his sit‑in at the Parliament Street police station on Friday evening. He had started the sit‑in than five hours earlier. The decision came after Delhi Police filed an FIR for the pellet injuries that 19‑year‑old Sahil Lochab suffered in a protest on July 20, at Jantar Mantar.
Gandhi, with Lochab beside him first walked to the Mandir Marg police station to ask for the FIR. Gandhi was turned away. Gandhi then went to the Parliament Street station where he met Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Sachin Sharma. That meeting did not get anywhere. Gandhi then sat outside the station, which also contains the DCPs office. Later, in the afternoon Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Salman Khurshid and Randeep Singh Surjewala joined Gandhi and many other party workers came to support him.
Police eventually registered the FIR under Sections 118 and 25 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which cover hurt caused by dangerous weapons and endangering personal safety. No one has been named as an accused yet.
Gandhi said Union Home Minister Amit Shah had still not explained the use of pellet guns and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not apologised, adding that Lochab's vision in one eye is now at risk. Delhi Police has denied firing pellets at the protesters and pointed to a five-member Supreme Court committee already looking into the July 20 violence.
The BJP was quick to hit back. Union minister J.P. Nadda called the dharna “cheap” and said it was really an attempt to change the subject from Congress's own troubles over singing only two stanzas of Vande Mataram. Party MP Ravi Shankar Prasad went further, accusing Gandhi of “politics of anarchy” and sitting outside a police station without permission while a court-ordered probe was already underway.
On the Congress side, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary K.C. Venugopal credited the FIR to Gandhi's pressure. Venugopal put it bluntly: authorities, he said, had been “forced to bend.”
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