AISA president Neha Bora refuses to sign peace bond, questions curbs on dissent

NEW DELHI: All India Students' Association president Neha Bora on Saturday said she will not sign a peace bond before a special executive magistrate, a day after the Delhi High Court dismissed her plea challenging a police notice directing her to provide a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety.

Questioning the rationale behind the notice, Bora asked, "Whose peace am I being asked to keep?" The police notice, issued on October 17 under Section 126 of the BNSS, asked the student leader to appear before a special executive magistrate (SEM) on October 19 and show cause as to why she should not execute a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety "for keeping peace for a period of inquiry".

Addressing the press at the CPI(ML) Liberation Parliamentary office here, Bora said demonstrating peacefully on the streets is a democratic right, and questioned how raising concerns against the government could be construed as a threat to peace. "If we do not ask the government any questions, whose peace are we keeping?" she asked, stressing that the right to question those in power and express dissent is fundamental to a democracy. Bora asserted that the fight against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, regardless of the direction it takes, must not come at the cost of labelling the right to dissent as a threat to peace.

The notice was issued on October 17, a day after Delhi Police detained Bora as she joined the 'Lehra Do Tiranga' march in the capital. The demonstration was part of the protests demanding Kumar's resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Bora had challenged the notice in the Delhi High Court, terming the preventive proceedings an attempt to suppress peaceful dissent, and said that the notice did not adequately establish the likelihood of a breach of peace. She maintained that peaceful protests and democratic opposition should not be treated as violations of public order, emphasising that the right to dissent must be protected.