NEW DELHI | The protest in Kalyanpuri over the broad-daylight stabbing murder of a sanitation worker continued for the second day on Monday, with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar joining the protesters to demand justice for the victim’s family. No representative of the Rekha Gupta government has yet visited the protesters.
Sharing a video from the protest, AAP Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj stated on X: “Thousands of people are sitting on a dharna in protest against the broad daylight murder of a sanitation worker. Their demand is that the CM come to meet them and provide one crore rupees in assistance to the family.”
Meanwhile, AAP Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar, who was sitting on the protest, said, “We are currently inside Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital. This incident took place at 7 am on Sunday, when our brother Anil, who was working as a sanitation worker, was stabbed to death in Delhi. Since the incident, thousands of sanitation workers have been sitting here in protest. We have spent the entire night sitting here and another day has now begun, but Anil’s killer has still not been arrested.”
Kuldeep Kumar further stated, “So far, no representative of the government has come to meet the victim’s family. Delhi has a government led by Rekha Gupta that does not understand the pain of sanitation workers. This government treats people from the Dalit community like insects and pests and thinks that, just as insects and pests keep dying, these people can also keep dying.” Delhi’s law and order situation, he said, has completely collapsed today, and the government has made the situation in Delhi extremely bad.
Kuldeep Kumar said that thousands of people were gathered outside Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital. He appealed to sanitation workers across Delhi, saying, “Wherever you work in Delhi, stop work and go on strike. Everyone should unite and demand justice for our brother Anil. Make your voices heard by this deaf and mute Rekha Gupta government. Everyone should support us and reach Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital.”
He added, “This struggle will continue until sanitation worker Anil gets justice. His broad-daylight murder raises serious questions about Delhi’s law and order and the failure of the police. If the government does not take immediate action, the entire Delhi will be brought to a standstill. If the people of Delhi are forced to take to the streets, the BJP government will be entirely responsible.”
The AAP MLA questioned, “How many people will the government remove from their jobs, and if it does remove them, who will do the sanitation work? If jobs are lost, all of us will lose them together. If I can be removed from the Delhi Assembly, your jobs can also be taken away. The government and administration think that we sanitation workers are nothing but garbage, so they can throw us out.”
He continued, “But if you throw us out of the Assembly or our jobs, we will sit on the streets. An unemployed person with nothing to do is more dangerous. For now, we have jobs, so we leave in the morning and return in the evening. But once we are removed from our jobs, we will sit on the streets for all 12 hours. Then we will see who picks up the garbage.”
Kuldeep Kumar said the police wanted to conduct Anil’s post-mortem and quietly close the matter, but they would not allow that to happen. He said Chief Minister Rekha Gupta still had time to act. “We are the people who form governments, so while we know how to clean the streets, we also know how to remove the arrogance of power that has gone to the heads of leaders,” he asserted.
The senior AAP leader said seeing so many people standing in support of Anil’s family made him proud. “The grieving parents also feel that so many Anils are standing with them in place of their son. We will not leave this place without getting justice,” he said.
Kuldeep Kumar concluded by stating, “We have three clear demands. Our first demand is that the accused in the murder be arrested, tried in a fast-track court and sentenced to death at the earliest. Our second demand is that the family be given compensation of ₹1 crore because Anil was the sole breadwinner of the family and his murder happened because of this government and system. Our third demand is that one member of the family be given a permanent government job because temporary workers spend their entire lives doing temporary jobs and die as temporary workers.”
