On the evening of October 11, a white Maruti Suzuki Fronx, registration UP14-HA-4945, sat near Gate 7 of the metro station in Connaught Place for nearly two hours. Four men were inside. Newslaundry reporters could see lathis in the vehicle.

The reporters alerted police personnel on the spot and asked them, repeatedly, to check the car. They did not. Instead, the police formed a cordon and appeared to help it leave.

The Delhi Police has since claimed the vehicle was checked, the “individual’s profile was fully vetted” and they have “zero criminal record”. But a video reviewed by Newslaundry shows one of the car’s occupants pulling wooden sticks out of the same vehicle the same day. 

In fact, over the past two days, Newslaundry examined videos, photographs and social media posts to analyse that the men around the car were part of a circle. A circle that openly called for force against protesters in the past, and at some moments engaged in violence too. A circle whose members seemingly faced little of the scrutiny the police applied to protesters and journalists over the weekend. 

The car’s owner, Gaurav Pandey, is a Ghaziabad-based real estate agent whose office address is listed on the very stretch of Connaught Place where protesters were repeatedly intimidated. 

Now look at two of the four occupants. A man in a white shirt, sitting in the front passenger seat, was filmed chatting with the policeman who later let the car go. Then there was a young man in a brown T-shirt, sitting in the back seat, who was filmed pulling sticks out of the car and then threatening protesters with them. This man, along with the car’s owner Gaurav Pandey, was also part of another crowd at the same spot a few days ago. 

That crowd last week was led by two BJP Kisan Morcha functionaries, Indresh Dwivedi and Sandeep Dedha. All of them chanted for the police to beat protesters.

The car is registered to Gaurav Pandey, who runs Pandey Real Estate Agency with his younger brother, Jai Kishan Pandey. Their business card places the office at M-61, Middle Circle, Connaught Place, near FabIndia and Starbucks. When Newslaundry visited M-61 on Tuesday, it found a clothing store, not a real estate office. The store’s owner said the shop had operated from the address for decades and he did not know Pandey. 

However, this stretch is where pro-police slogans were raised before the protest, and where much of the intimidation on October 10 and 11 took place.

On the evening of October 11, a video shows Gaurav Pandey knocking on the rear left door of the white Fronx. In another video, he was seen assaulting a protester with a few others.

Newslaundry contacted Gaurav Pandey about the sticks in his car. He said he was busy and would call back. He had not done so at the time of publishing.

The man with the sticks

The clearest link between the car and the sticks is a young man in a full-sleeved brown T-shirt with a small white brand logo on the left side of his chest. He was sitting in the back seat of Pandey’s car when reporters asked the police to check it on Sunday.

A video shot from a height at 3.56 pm on October 11 shows this man opening the door of the white Fronx and pulling out two sticks. Someone from his group stops him. But moments later, as protesters cross the road, he is seen brandishing the sticks at them.

Seen in the car that fled away.

This man was seen indulging in violence during the Jantar Mantar protest in July too.

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