New Delhi, Jun 27, 2022, IANS

New Delhi, July 27 (IANS) Heavy security has been deployed around the Congress headquarters here ahead of party president Sonia Gandhi's third round of questioning at the Enforcement Directorate(ED) office in the National Herald case on Wednesday.

Anticipating another protest march by the Congress workers, police has placed several barricades on the road to stop the protesters from moving towards the ED office.

The barricades were placed en route from 24 Akbar road to the ED Office, Paryawaran Bhawan, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam road.

The police personnel in heavy numbers, along with paramilitary force and rapid action force teams have been deployed at several points to avoid any untoward incident.

Delhi Traffic Police has also issued an advisory asking the people to avoid certain roads today."Kindly avoid Motilal Nehru Marg, Akbar Road, Janpath & Man Singh Road between 9.00 a.m. to 2 p.m. Due to special arrangements traffic movement will not be possible on these roads," the advisory read.

It also asked people to avoid Gol Methi junction, Tughlak Road Junction, Claridges Junction, Q-point Junction, Sunehri Masjid Junction, Maulana Azad Road Junction & Man Singh Road Junction during the same time as mentioned above.

On Tuesday, as many as 259 Congress party workers, including 57 Members of Parliament, were detained during their party's protest. At about 11 a.m., a large number of the AICC workers started gathering at various locations i.e. Akbar Road, Man Singh Road, Vijay Chowk, Janpath, etc. and started protesting.

Around the same time, Congress lawmakers carried out a protest march from Parliament house to Rashtrapati Bhawan. However, as they moved forward to give a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu, the Delhi Police stopped them midway near Vijay Chowk.

Subsequently, Congress parliamentarians, including Rahul Gandhi, sat in protest in front of the Vijay Chowk. The protesting Congress leaders, holding placards, raised slogans against the probe agency ED and the Central government.

Special Commissioner of Police, L & O Division, Dr Sagar Preet Hooda said that the protesters were appropriately warned about the prohibitory orders in force in the area and repeatedly requested to disperse from there but they continued the protest, thereby violating prohibitory orders under section 144 CrPC.

Accordingly, every protesting leader, including Rahul Gandhi, were detained from near the Vijay Chowk and taken from there in a bus along to new police lines, Kingsway Police camp.

All the party leaders were released from detention around 7 p.m., over 6 hours after they were detained by the police.