ON October 17, 2026, at short notice, more than a hundred women belonging to various women’s organisations like AIDWA, NFIW, AIPWA, AIMSS, All India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), AICCWW, Pragatisheel M S, Purogami M S, PMEK, ICWM, Collective, Saheli, SFI, KYS, CSW and Anhad assembled near the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara and marched to the Delhi Police Headquarters condemning the police brutality and sexual violence against women and transgenders during the ongoing protests against the Election Commission of India (ECI).

AIDWA President P K Sreemathi, Vice Presidents Mariam Dhawale and S Punyavathi, Joint Secretary Asha Sharma, Delhi President Asha Yadav, Delhi Secretary Kavita Sharma, Delhi Vice President Maimoona Mollah, NFIW leader Annie Raja and others led this protest.

The protestors raised resounding slogans against the police and demanded strict action against the accused police officials. Women also demanded the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and an end to the entire SIR process.

A memorandum was submitted to DCP Jaidev Singh who rushed to the police headquarters after the women staged a rasta roko on Ashoka Road for more than half an hour. The Police Commissioner was not present in the office and the protesting organisations refused to give the memorandum to the SHO of the Parliament Street police station.

The DCP listened to the women and assured them of an early appointment with the CP and action against the erring police personnel. The memorandum gave details of the atrocities committed from October 2, as seen on footage and from numerous personal accounts of sexual harassment and assault of women and transgender protesters by police personnel.

Videos and photographs have shown male police officers brutally assaulting women. In one video, a police officer is seen pressing himself against a woman protester against a bus, in a manner that clearly constitutes sexual assault. A young woman journalist has alleged that an ACP-ranked police officer grabbed her breasts. When she attempted to file a complaint, she herself was detained and an FIR was filed against her and others. The indecent behaviour with women journalists by police personnel inside a police station has been widely reported. Trans women and trans men have reported many instances of women and men police officers attacking them sexually, hitting them on the genitals and brutalising them. Similar reports of sexualised attacks on male protestors have also surfaced.

In addition to the attacks that occurred in full public view, similar and worse accounts of sexual and gendered attacks have been reported from within the detention buses and the ‘detention centres’ themselves. This has been occurring day after day for over a week now! Added to this has been the police complicity in, and support of, the open violence against women and trans women and trans men by right wing hoodlums, all over the city. 

These deliberate actions by the authorities are nothing but misogynistic attempts to silence women's voices and reveal a larger intent to push women out of politics and public life. By failing to prevent or act against such misconduct, the Modi-Shah-led BJP-RSS government is not only encouraging this violence but also emboldening it. Added to this have been countless incidents of verbal abuse. There has been widespread use of casteist, sexist, communal, gendered abuses to malign, demean people and communities.  

The October 17 Delhi demonstration showed that women will refuse to bow down to forces that threaten their constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceful protest. The organisations demanded strict disciplinary and legal action against all the police personnel responsible for these violent acts. Those found guilty must be held accountable and punished under the law.