A truck carrying stones that was seen parked near Delhi’s Jantar Mantar hours before the Cockroach Janta Party’s march to Parliament on July 20 had been in the custody of the Delhi Police for four days after it was seized in a road accident case, Newslaundry reported on Tuesday.

The Delhi Police acknowledged that the truck had been seized on July 16 in connection with the case. However, it stated that “claims alleging that [the truck] was deliberately deployed by Delhi Police near Jantar Mantar…are false and misleading”.

On July 20, hours before the Cockroach Janta Party’s planned march to Parliament, the political campaign posted a video on social media showing the truck carrying stones having been parked at Jantar Mantar.

Abhijeet Dipke, the campaign’s founder, had asked at the time whether the police was “orchestrating stone-pelting on the peaceful CJP protesters”.

On Tuesday, Newslaundry reported that it had traced the truck using its registration number. The vehicle had been seized by the police on July 16 following a crash in central Delhi in which seven persons were injured. A first information report was registered in the crash and the truck had been in the custody of the Parliament Street police station.

Following the crash, the truck had been taken to at least four places including the protest site and outside the Indian Youth Congress office in Delhi, the news outlet reported.

Newslaundry reported that police personnel provided varying explanations for why the truck had been parked at the protest site.

Commenting on the report, the police acknowledged that the truck had been seized on July 16. It added that the vehicle had initially been parked near the Parliament Street police station “for safe custody due to space constraints”.

However, considering the law and order arrangements for the protesters’ march to Parliament, the truck was “later emptied and shifted to a safer place in the early hours of [July 20], after due instructions to the owner”, the police said.

“Any claim linking the vehicle to a conspiracy against protesters is completely baseless,” the police said.

The agitation in Delhi began on June 6, when the Cockroach Janta Party began a protest at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time, over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams. Pradhan resigned on Saturday.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet gun against the demonstrators.

The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

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