Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act turned violent in Jamia Milia Islamia University after buses were torched and public properties vandalised. This is indeed a very sensitive matter and the media needs to handle it with care. It is very easy to create sensation out of these, but the role of media is to be responsible. Similarly, the role of police in our society is to maintain law and order. They are trained and instructed to do so. These are their Standard Operating Procedures. They are not supposed to be motivated by ideologies and till the time our police is following their procedures, there is no mistake. Beyond a certain point, when protests turn violent due to the presence of anti-social elements, the police must exert force.

So, what should the police do when a protest turns violent?

The first and foremost job of the police is to maintain law and order. They have been trained for years and they have a set Standard Operating Procedure for that. They cannot let emotions come in between that. They should follow their process and there is no mistake if they are doing so. Sometimes things do cross a certain threshold and the police need to exert force which unfortunately happened in this case. It was mostly motivated by anti-social elements.

How much force is reasonable?

The police do not enjoy applying unreasonable force on 

About Abhinav Khare

Abhinav Khare is the CEO of Asianet News Network and also the host of a daily show named Deep Dive with AK. He has a lifetime collection of books and gadgets and has already pinged more than hundred cities around the globe. 

He is a tech entrepreneur, who is passionate about policy, technology, economy and philosophy from ancient India. He earned an MS Engineering from the ETH Zurich and an MBA Finance from the London Business School.