‘Whose peace am I being asked to keep?’ Neha Bora questions police notice

All India Students’ Association president Neha Bora said she would not sign a peace bond after the Delhi High Court dismissed her challenge to the police notice. She questioned whether protests and criticism could be treated as threats to peace

New Delhi: All India Students’ Association president Neha Bora on Saturday said she would not sign a peace bond before a special executive magistrate, a day after the Delhi High Court dismissed her plea challenging a police notice directing her to furnish a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety.

Questioning the rationale behind the notice, Bora asked, “Whose peace am I being asked to keep?”

Issued on October 17 under Section 126 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), the police notice directed Bora to appear before a special executive magistrate (SEM) on October 19 and show cause why she should not execute a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety “for keeping peace for a period of inquiry”.

Addressing a press conference at the CPI(ML) Liberation Parliamentary office here, Bora said peaceful demonstrations on the streets were a democratic right. She questioned how raising concerns against the government could be construed as a threat to peace.

“If we do not ask the government any questions, whose peace are we keeping?” she asked, stressing that the right to question those in power and express dissent was fundamental to democracy.

Bora asserted that the fight against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, regardless of its course, must not result in the right to dissent being labelled a threat to peace.

The notice was issued a day after Delhi Police detained Bora on October 16 when she joined the ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ march in the capital.

The demonstration was part of protests demanding Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Bora had challenged the notice in the Delhi High Court, describing the preventive proceedings as an attempt to suppress peaceful dissent. She argued that the notice did not adequately establish the likelihood of a breach of peace.

She maintained that peaceful protests and democratic opposition should not be treated as violations of public order, emphasising that the right to dissent must be protected.