Kannan Gopinathan detained in UP on his way to deliver speech at AMU

The former IAS officer took to Twitter to update his whereabouts and said the police are being cordial with him.

CAAImage Courtesy: indiatimes.com

Kannan Gopinathan has become one of the prominent faces of dissent in the current wave of protests that has taken over the country.

He has been visiting many cities all over India ever since the protests against CAA and NRC have started erupting and has been widely speaking about the issue through various media. As per a notice issued by Resident Doctor’s Association of JN Medical College Hospital of Aligarh Muslim Univeristy, Kannan Gopinathan was scheduled to deliver a speech today at 2.30 pm in the College premises. In this regard he had posted a tweet saying he got a call from Aligarh District administration asking him not to attend the said event. He said that he will go to Aligarh anyway and that the Administration is free to do as they deem fit.

https://twitter.com/naukarshah/status/1213089808073056256

Clearly, he had apprehended that he will not be allowed to reach the event and that he would be detained. Expectedly, he was detained in Agra itself when the orders were to not enter Aligarh. He kept posting update via his twitter account about his detention whereby he briefly mentioned that the police were being cordial and respectful with him.

He also gave updates that he was first taken to a dhaba and then wondered why he was being taken to a guest house instead of a police station. He even shared a copy of the order of the District Magistrate of Aligarh.

https://twitter.com/naukarshah/status/1213326233926287361

The notification issued by the Aligarh District Magistrate directed the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) to ensure that Gopinathan was not allowed to enter the district. Citing previous incidents, the order stated that the law and order situation was compromised during similar visits by Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav and Dr Kafeel Khan. It is reported that among the other speaker of the event, Fahad Ahmed, former General Secretary of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences has also been detained by the police.

https://twitter.com/naukarshah/status/1213324198711627776

The last update from him came at around 11 am.

Gopinathan, a 2012-batch IAS officer hails from Kerala and while in employment, he held the post of secretary of key departments like power and non-conventional energy sources in the Dadra and Nagar Haveli administration before quitting the services in August 2019 over “denial of freedom of expression in Jammu & Kashmir” following the dilution of Article 370.

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