Did Delhi Police threaten coaching centres, room owners to shut down in Mukherjee Nagar? Depends on who you ask

On Wednesday, DCP of North West Delhi, Vijyanta Arya, tweeted that fake messages are being spread about the police shutting down coaching centres in Mukherjee Nagar. The Delhi Police had also registered cases against people who spread these messages. However, an AISA fact-finding team, comprising of students from the University of Delhi and Ambedkar University Delhi claimed that the police's account is wrong and that the owners of PG Accommodations and Coaching Centres were threatened by the police to keep the centres and accommodations closed until January 2.

"All the coaching centres and accommodations in Mukherjee Nagar are closed. Yesterday, we spoke to the students who were headed to their houses," said Amarjeet Kumar Singh, a student of DU's Law Faculty. "The policemen denied asking the Coaching centre owners to shut down. But the students said that they could easily recognise the police officers who came to their class and threatened the owners. For instance, somebody who runs Prudence Coaching Centre was approached by 30 policemen who told him that in case he didn't shut down the coaching centre, he will have to pay a fine of Rs 50,000," he said.

The Mukherjee Nagar area in Delhi is popular for private entrance examination coaching centres.

The DU Students' Union, however, said that the claims are fake. "We went to Mukherjee Nagar and had found out that everything is normal there. We spoke to the owners of coaching centres too. A lot of them had shut down, believing the rumours. The police was really cooperative too," said DUSU President Akshit Dahiya. "In case the students are in trouble or if they are threatened by the police, they can always reach out to the DUSU. We are there to help them out," he added.