Responding to the decision by Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor to invoke powers under India’s National Security Act (NSA) that allow police to hold people in administrative detention without procedural guarantees, including the right to be informed of the grounds of detention and the possibility to challenge it before judicial authorities, Aakar Patel, Chair of the Board of Amnesty International India, said:
“This deeply concerning move is an affront to human rights that risks enflaming the situation in Delhi even further. It grants the police a host of discretionary powers to detain people for entirely arbitrary reasons for up to 12 months. Fair trial rights guaranteed under international human rights law are essentially suspended, as detainees are denied legal representation and do not have to be informed of the grounds of their detention for up to 15 days.
“Despite the Delhi police’s claim that this is a purely routine administrative measure, we’ve seen Indian police abuse these powers in the context of protests before, from the anti-CAA protests in 2020 to the 2026 workers’ protests in Noida.
Such powers have no place in policing – amid protests or otherwise
Aakar Patel, Chair of the Board of Amnesty International India
