CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member John Brittas has written separate letters to President Droupadi Murmu, the Rajya Sabha Chairman, and the Chief Justice of India, calling for an independent inquiry into what he describes as a physical attack on him by Delhi Police and CRPF personnel at a demonstration outside the office of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday.

In formal correspondence dispatched to all three constitutional authorities, Brittas set out a sequence of events in which he was pulled along the ground for roughly 50 metres while speaking with members of the press near Connaught Place, bundled into a police vehicle against his will, subjected to physical mistreatment inside it, and then left at the roadside. Following the altercation, the MP was transported to Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, where doctors carried out an X-ray and a broader physical assessment of the injuries he had sustained.

In his formal submission, Brittas has requested a court-supervised inquiry into the matter, to be conducted either by a special investigation team drawn from officers with no connection to the personnel involved or by another independent agency. Among the requests lodged by him are directives for the retention of footage from video recordings, vehicle identification data, movement logs, deployment records, and duty rosters, alongside formal protections for witnesses, journalists, and bystanders who may have observed the relevant events.

Drawing on the Supreme Court's guidance issued earlier that day regarding protest management in Delhi, Brittas noted that the incident's timing prompts scrutiny of whether protections for peaceful assembly and personal liberty under the constitution are being upheld.

Speaking with members of the press in Delhi on Sunday morning, Brittas stated that Delhi Police and CRPF personnel physically obstructed him as he made his way to a demonstration at Jantar Mantar directed at CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The CPI(M) lawmaker stated that personnel handled him with physical force on more than one occasion, despite his repeated disclosure of his standing as a sitting Member of Parliament.

According to Brittas, CRPF personnel lifted him bodily and transferred him onto a waiting police bus, where he was placed into a seat, all while he repeatedly stated that he held a seat in Parliament and objected to being handled. Seated on the footpath after being removed from the police vehicle, Brittas told reporters that he and another man had been held down in their seats by force and left unable to breathe.

Brittas recounted how a deputy commissioner of police from the police control room witnessed the events, contacted the officers aboard the bus, and directed them to release him on the grounds that he held parliamentary status, after which, he said, the officers removed him from the vehicle and placed him in an auto-rickshaw without providing any escort.

Footage released by the CPI(M) captured Brittas slumping onto bus steps, after which he was transported to RML Hospital where doctors assessed him for potential chest injuries. His letter placed him at the scene around 12:30 pm, having made his way there upon receiving word that young activists were being held by authorities.

His account described officers continuing to use physical force against him even after both he and nearby journalists had stated his parliamentary status, with the same treatment persisting once he was inside the vehicle following his identification. According to Brittas, a deputy commissioner of police reviewed the circumstances of his detention, determined it had no lawful basis, and directed that he be freed. He stated that physical discomfort and pain persisted in the aftermath of the incident.

Sajid Hussain, identified as a fellow passenger on the bus, told waiting reporters that officers had treated the CPI(M) leader in a manner he considered inappropriate. Brittas noted that his own experience — detained despite holding a parliamentary seat and having broken no laws — raised questions about the treatment ordinary citizens might face, and added that news of student activists being taken into police custody had brought him to the scene.

CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby and Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha visited Brittas at RML Hospital. Following his visit, Baby put forward allegations that Delhi Police had physically harmed student and youth activists held in connection with the protest, with police vehicles cited as the setting for the mistreatment — a claim he posted on social media, naming SFI President Adarsh M Saji and DYFI CEC member Jaick C Thomas among those he said were subjected to violence while in custody. Baby further alleged that female protesters had been physically assaulted and held for extended periods inside police vehicles, and stated that those calling for Kumar's removal would not be dissuaded by the measures taken.