Baba Ramdev lived up to his billing as a maverick today as he jumped from the dais in Ramlila Maidan and melted in the crowd before resurfacing in a salwar-kameez in a bid to dodge past the police posing as an injured woman.
But the script went wrong for the 46-year-old yoga gurn as some cops grew suspicious after the "seriously injured woman", who was walking with both arms thrown over the shoulders of two women, refused to board an ambulance offered by them.
For Ramdev and security establishment, it was high drama -- from his going missing to finding him and then sending him to Dehradun in a special plane.
It was 4am and almost three hours had gone by after the police lost track of the yoga guru who leapt from a 3m high rostrum into a sea of his followers teeming under a giant tent and did a vanishing act.
Ramdev had sought five minutes from the police to gather his belongings but he swiftly picked up the microphone and shouted 'Vande Mataram' to rouse his followers from slumber and resist the police plan to break up the protest.
Senior police officials had gone there to inform him about "specific" intelligence inputs about threat to his life and another person and to request him to wind up the protest.
He melted in the crowd and police began frantic searches for the guru who sneaked behind the podium where he shed his saffron attire and slip into a white salwar-kameez.
As a camouflaged Ramdev tried out make his way out, his supporters fought pitched battles with police, throwing bricks and flower pots forcing the men in uniform to respond by exploding tear gas shells.
"Ramdev was posing as a woman. He used a silver colour 'dupatta' to cover his black beard. He was walking with his arms over the shoulders of two women. As the policemen, who were posted behind the dais, found "an injured woman", they offered to take her to hospital in ambulance.
"But the victim refused and in between the dupatta got slightly displaced, betraying Ramdev's identity to police. He ran but our men trailed him and caught him," Dharmendra Kumar, special commissioner (law and order), told reporters in Delhi.
At 4am, the police took him to a airport guest house and started making preparations for his journey to Haridwar via Dehradun from Safdurjung Airport.
The news got leaked that he would be brought to Safdurjung Airport, leading to a gathering of Ramdev's followers and prompting the government to adopt a Plan-B.
A top government source said as per law, the Centre has to inform the state government, to which a person is externed and in this case, it was BJP-ruled Uttarakhand. The source said the news got leaked from Dehradun that he would be flown from Safdurjung Airport and Ramdev's followers gathered there.
The government had already arranged another plane at the IGI airport and seeing the gathering, they decided to take the yoga guru to the IGI airport from where he was flown to Dehradun in a special aircraft. After he was detained, he was kept in a government guesthouse.
In the midnight drama broadcast live by television cameras, Ramdev's supporters rose in protest against the police action while some elderly men swooned due to the impact of tear gas shelling resorted to by police.
Police action came after they withdrew the permission for his yoga camp and imposed prohibitory orders after what a senior police official said a political decision was taken to end the protest.
