"If you have faith in me and in what I say, you all sing a song with me", Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Chetan Singh Rathore told a group of protesters at Town Hall in the city centre on Thursday and made them render the Anthem - "Jana Gana Mana" along with him in chorus.
Explaining to on Friday how he persuaded the protesters to disperse from the venue in view of the ban order under section 144 of the CrPC, Rathore said most of the protesters at the venue were driven by social media without a leader.
"As majority of them were social media driven and leaderless, I told them to beware of an unknown bad element suddenly becoming their leader, provoking them to turn violent and making them a part of mob mentality," recalled Rathore.
In a video clip that went viral in the social media on Friday, Rathore is seen exhorting the protesters to be careful of bad elements taking advantage of the volatile situation and creating a mob mentality to trigger violence or clash with the police, pointed out Rathore.
Heeding to Rathore's wise advice, several protesters lauded him for cautioning them about the bad elements in such gatherings and agreed to abide by his word.
The protesters clapped, whistled, cheered and shouted in approval to join the officer in singing the Anthem.
The protesters also chanted "Jai Hind" later and dispersed without a murmur.
"Organised protests have leaders or a strong leader who seek a solution or talk about their next course of action. In such a grave situation, people fight among themselves being in different groups. There were number of leaders in the groups but there was no interaction between those people," reiterated Rathore.
Rathore also said such situations are a recipe for disaster as anti-social elements with herd mentality take advantage and mislead even law-abiding citizens.
"Anti-social elements are talkative and impressive through their glib talk to woo crowds who accept them as their leaders and do what they say," he added.
Rather than allowing an evil person take undue advantage of the situation, the IPS officer wanted to check if they would listen to him.
Without using force, the protesters accepted him as their temporary leader and obliged him for a happy ending.
( With inputs from IANS )