- Youth Congress protesters stripped shirts and shouted slogans at India AI Impact Summit
- Four protesters were arrested; facial recognition will track others involved in the disruption
- Police are investigating a conspiracy; protesters changed tactics to avoid security checks
The gaggle of Youth Congress workers who stripped shirtless in an embarrassing moment at the India AI Impact Summit Friday, and rushed about waving t-shirts and shouting slogans denouncing the India-US tariff agreement, came 'fully prepared', government sources told NDTV.
Four of them have been arrested and the rest will be tracked down - with help from facial recognition technology - and held to account, sources said this afternoon. They are Krishna Hari, the Indian Youth Congress' National Secretary; Narasimha Yadav, the organisation's National Coordinator; and Kundan Yadav and Ajay Kumar, office-bearers from its Bihar and Uttar Pradesh units.
The protesters entered the summit as thousands have over the past five days - after registering with event security and displaying QR codes containing their entry passes. Once inside, the shirts came off.
Shameful visuals showed the men wandering about a pavilion waving t-shirts with protest messages targeting 'compromised Prime Minister Narendra Modi".
Security Concern
The four arrested people will be taken to court today. The police said they will add serious charges in the first information report (FIR) against them, as they had attacked policemen who tried to speak to them.
The police are investigating a larger conspiracy, sources said. The men initially planned to enter Bharat Mandapam by pasting printed stickers to black umbrellas. Then they realised the black umbrellas would be taken from them at the gate.
So, they changed their plan and affixed printed stickers to t-shirts, sources said, adding the police are checking from where they got the stickers printed.
A 28-second video was shared by the IYC on X with the message: "The truth can't be suppressed behind the glittering stage of the AI Summit. When corporate interests appear to trump national interests and softness in foreign policy is clearly visible, protest becomes a duty!"
The IYC's National President told news agency ANI: "Today, Youth Congress members went to the AI Summit and raised slogans, 'PM is compromised'. This anger isn't just from our Youth Congress members… it is from every young person who is unemployed today and every single one of them knows that our Prime Minister is compromised."
The Congress and other opposition parties have been critical of the India-US tariff deal announced by Donald Trump, arguing it requires a substantially reduction, or elimination, of tariffs.
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The US will, in turn, apply a reciprocal tariff of 18 per cent on Indian-origin goods under the relevant executive order, covering sectors such as textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastics and rubber, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal products, and certain machinery.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – itself under fire after the Galgotias University incident, in which the Noida-based institution displayed a Chinese-made robotic dog as its own – ripped into the Congress.
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal accused senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of "arrogance" and said he had "humiliated India to target the (BJP) government". The party's national spokesperson, Pradeep Bhandari, said the Congress had committed an "anti-national act".
Forests Minister Bhupender Yadav, meanwhile, called the disruption "absolute shamelessness".
On X he said, "At a time Bharat is taking strides positioning itself as a global technology powerhouse, Congress is going all out to embarrass the country. This is not political opposition, this is an attempt at sabotaging India's global image. Despicable."
