Senior AAP leaders, including Punjab Minister Harjot Singh Bains and Somnath Bharti, were among party supporters who were detained outside Patel Chowk metro station in the national capital on Tuesday while protesting against the arrest of its national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate in (ED) in the liquor policy case.

In a series of posts on X, senior AAP leader Bharti said, “Detained by @DelhiPolice for no rhyme or reason alongwith Dy Speaker @rakhibirla and many volunteers of AAP and supporters of Sri @ArvindKejriwal Ji. It’s shocking to see that while the Delhi Police are arresting peacefully protesting AAP supporters, they are doing nothing to stop @BJP4India.”

“Detained from Patel Chowk Metro Station and brought to PS: Sector 9, Dwarka along with volunteers and AAP supporters including three female volunteers. Now the protests are over, we should be released but for reasons best known to @DelhiPolice, we continue to be detained in the police station,” he wrote.

Bharti said it was strange to note that where protests organised by the BJP were given a very different treatment, agitations by the Aam Aadmi Party were not only being ”crushed” but ”protesters were being given the worst of the treatments”.

Earlier, the Delhi police in announcements outside the Patel Chowk Metro station said no permission has been granted for protests. Section 144 of the CrPC, which prohibits the gathering of four or more people in an area, has been imposed and that the area should be cleared within five minutes, the police stated.

Security had been heightened with the deployment of police outside Patel Chowk metro station in view of AAP’s PM residence ‘gherao’ protest against the arrest of Kejriwal.

“Due to security reasons, entry/exit at Lok Kalyan Marg Metro station, Gate no 3 of Patel Chowk Metro Station and Gate no 5 of Central Secretariat Metro station will remain closed till further notice,” the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said in a post on X.

In view of the call by the AAP for a ‘gherao’ at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence to register their protest, Paramilitary personnel in anti-riot gear have been deployed on the road leading to the prime minister’s residence and outside the Patel Chowk metro station.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Devesh Kumar Mahla said, “No permission has been granted (to AAP for protest). We have made sufficient deployment at the PM residence and Patel Chowk metro station to maintain law and order. No march or demonstration will be allowed. No route diversions done.”

Meanwhile, a rally will be organised by the INDIA bloc on March 31 against the arrest of Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate.

Kejriwal was on March 22, remanded to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate for seven days, ie, till March 28, a day after he was arrested by the probe agency in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy case linked to a money laundering case.

The case pertains to alleged irregularities and money laundering in framing and implementing the Delhi excise policy case 2022, which was later scrapped.

Two senior AAP leaders, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, are in judicial custody in the excise policy case. Sisodia, who was the then Delhi Deputy Chief Minister, was arrested by the CBI on February 26, 2023 following several rounds of questioning. On October 5, last year the ED arrested Sanjay Singh, who is a Rajya Sabha member.