Chandra Shekhar Aazad “ran from house to house and jumped across terraces to avoid getting caught,” the Indian Express reported about a dramatic escape of the Bhim Army leader from the Delhi Police on 20 December 2019. Earlier that day, Aazad had read out the preamble to the Constitution to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at the footsteps of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. Aazad later told The Caravan that the police had briefly detained him and then set him free. He reached Jama Masjid again at night.
Early next morning, the Delhi police arrested Aazad in connection to violence that had ensued the previous day during an anti-CAA protest in Daryaganj, an area close to Jama Masjid. He remained in custody for over three weeks, till he was released late night on 16 January2020. Upon his release, he told The Caravan, “From tomorrow, we will teach people the Constitution, teach them their fundamental duties.” On the eve of Republic Day, he announced on Twitter, “To strengthen the mass movement against the black laws of the National Register of Citizens, the CAA and the National Population Register, I am coming to Hyderabad for the first time.”
In the afternoon of 26 January, Aazad was supposed to give a talk at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. From there, at around 2.30 pm, he was to travel a distance of around fifty kilometers, to Crystal Gardens in the Mehdipatnam area to read the preamble. The next day, he was scheduled to visit the University of Hyderabad to speak to its students.
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