L-G asks for cops’ report, Bassi claims ‘provocation’

A day after the Delhi police drew flak for its brutal action against protesting students outside the RSS office in the city, lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung summoned joint commissioner S.K. Gautam seeking a detailed report. Police commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi, on the other hand, defended his force, saying the police may have been “provoked” by protesters.

He tweeted on Tuesday: “Right to protest coexists with what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said — The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

On Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s tweet that the Delhi police was being used as the “private army” of the BJP and RSS, Mr Bassi said he would try to clear the CM’s “misgivings” when they meet next.

Mr Gautam, at his meeting with Mr Jung, apprised him on what had transpired on the day of the protest.