Caught in woman’s white attire

New Delhi: Ramdev lived up to his billing as a maverick as he jumped from the dais in the 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.

Ramdev addresses his supporters moments before the police raid on the venue

But the script went wrong for the 46-year-old yoga guru 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 a high drama - from his going missing to finding him and then sending him to Dehradun in a special plane. It was 4 am and almost three hours had gone by after the police lost track of the yoga guru, who leapt from a three-metre 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.