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On February 25, 2026, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police undertook a rare interstate police confrontation when three Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers had been apprehended in a resort in Rohru (Shimla district) in relation to the shirtless protest by the protestors at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 20.

The accused, Saurabh Singh and Arbaaz Khan of Uttar Pradesh and Siddharth Avdhoot of Madhya Pradesh, were picked up in the early morning without notifying the local authorities, and the Delhi team was intercepted on the Chandigarh-Shimla highway just south of the Shoghi barrier by Himachal Pradesh Police. Himachal police leveled procedural violation, kidnapping, and unlawful arrest charges against unidentified Delhi officers, obtaining an FIR that the unidentified Delhi officers had kidnapped the resort staff and had tampered with evidence (i.e., taken a DVR of the restaurant).

The Delhi squad, which had approximately 15-20 officers, was held up for a few hours; vehicles were pulled, and the three who were arrested were released on a temporary basis pending the court proceedings. A local magistrate gave transit remand after medical exams and a hearing at court around 1 am on February 26, which permitted Delhi police to leave the accused with them early in the morning, and so the 24-hour drama ended.

It was rooted in the fact that the Delhi Police went on a rampage against the IYC activists after they went to the extent of disrupting the AI Summit by carrying out topless protests and anti-government slogans. In Delhi eight other arrests had been made. Himachal, which is a Congress-ruled state, considered the cross-state arrest to be an overstep, whereas Delhi considered it to be a legal procedure.

The episode elicited the problem of jurisdiction of the police in the interstate cases and also created partisan finger-pointing, with the opposition accusing abuses of central agencies. Officials in both directions minimized physical confrontations when the standoff highlighted the multi-state investigation shortfalls in the procedures. The turf war has brought up the coordination between the state and the Union Territory forces, as the three are charged in Delhi.