Mallika Dureja
Congress leader Pawan Khera was taken into custody by Assam Police on Thursday in a manner that raised eyebrows; he was taken into custody by Delhi Police after being removed from an IndiGo flight to Raipur and detained until their colleagues from the northeastern state arrived to take him into custody for allegedly making derogatory remarks about the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi. Khera was travelling to the capital of Chhattisgarh in order to attend a Congress meeting there. Within a matter of hours, both Khera and the Congress had made their way to the Supreme Court. There, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had granted Khera interim bail and protection from arrest until Tuesday. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear Khera’s petition to club the three FIRs that have been filed against him: one in Assam and two in Uttar Pradesh. A Delhi judge released Khera on bail a few hours later, requiring him to post a bond of 30,000 rupees.
What led to the Assam Police seizing and arresting Pawan Khera ?
Khera referred to the Prime Minister as “Narendra Gautamdas Modi” on February 17, 2019, while he was speaking at a press conference in Bombay. After consulting with a fellow worker, it seemed as though he made a course correction.
The purpose of the press conference was to bring attention to the demands made by the Congress for a parliamentary investigation into allegations made about the Adani Group by the short-seller Hindenburg Research, which is headquartered in the United States.
The remark caused officials of the BJP to become outraged, and they claimed that it was an insult to Modi. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Chief Minister of Assam, referred to Khera as a “courtier” and stated that his comments demonstrated that the Congress is “full of entitlement and disdain…”
“India will not ignore or forgive these disgusting comments made by Congressmen.”
Today, the Congress issued a response, and the spokesperson for the party, Randeep Surjewala, demanded to know if the Assam leader – on whose instructions officers said they were acting when they arrested Khera – is “God.”
What took place on the IndiGo aircraft to Raipur, number 6E-204?
Khera was requested to disembark from the aircraft just a few minutes before it was scheduled to take off with him and several of his colleagues, including Supriya Shrinate and Surjewala, en route to the meeting of the Congress in Raipur. Someone informed him that there was a “problem” with the airline tag that was on his baggage. Khera subsequently stated that he did not have any bags that required check-in.
Khera was informed that he was not allowed to leave because a DCP-rank police officer, which is equivalent to a deputy commissioner of police, was on his way to arrest him after he exited the plane, which prompted furious protests from other Congress leaders, who staged a dharna on the tarmac of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. Khera’s arrest prompted other Congress leaders to stage a dharna on the tarmac of the airport.
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He stated to the reporters that he waited for several minutes prior to the arrival of officials from both the Delhi Police and the Assam Police. During this entire period, Congress leaders continued their protests on the tarmac, which resulted in IndiGo being forced to de-board every passenger and re-route the remaining passengers to their destinations using alternative flights.
As Pawan Khera was eventually led away by Assam Police, protests on the tarmac intensified, and opposition lawmakers from other parties, such as the chief of the Samajwadi Party and a former chief minister of Puducherry, V Narayanasamy, spoke out in support of the Congress representative.
