CPM MP John Brittas Calls Police Brutality an Assault on Democracy in Letter to President Murmu

Kerala‑born Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas, a senior figure in the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has lodged a formal complaint with President Droupadi Murmu, Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan and Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. In his letter, he says he was dragged, roughly handled and left on a Delhi road after merely speaking to a few reporters during a protest.

According to Brittas, the police officers forced him into a patrol vehicle, shoved him around inside, and then abandoned him on the roadside as if he were a stray. He insists the whole episode happened “for the crime of speaking to the media” – a phrasing that underscores his view that the act was less about law and order and more about silencing dissent.

What makes the episode especially striking, Brittas points out, is its timing. The Supreme Court had just a few hours earlier issued directions meant to protect peaceful assemblies and uphold constitutional freedoms. “Manhandled, dragged, assaulted and misbehaved inside a police vehicle and dumped by the roadside – for the crime of speaking to the media,” he wrote, calling the incident a direct breach of parliamentary privilege.

In the same missive, the MP warns that this is not an isolated assault on a single legislator; it is, in his words, “an assault on democratic freedoms and the rule of law.” He urges the President and other constitutional heads to hold the errant officers accountable and to start a proper inquiry into the violation of parliamentary privilege.

Brittas’s appeal carries a broader political message. He cautions that a government that tries to replace “the force of the baton with the force of debate” will only erode the very fabric of democracy. “The strength of a democracy lies not in its capacity to suppress dissent, but in its ability to address it,” he wrote.

The letter arrives amid a spate of arrests and confrontations across the capital, where opposition leaders and activists have been repeatedly detained during protests demanding greater accountability from the ruling establishment.