The Congress claimed the cops "broke protocols" by sending male officials.
The Congress has alleged its women's wing workers were "manhandled" by policemen during a protest over inflation outside the BJP headquarters in Delhi on Tuesday.
A video tweeted by Congress showed a cop in uniform pulling a woman worker by her hand amid strong resistance. Sanjeev Kumar, the station house officer at the IP Estate Police Station, was also seen pushing another woman protester.
The cop was only trying to snatch an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the protesters, said police sources, defending the action of the SHO.
The Congress claimed the cops "broke protocols" by sending male officials to the site where women were protesting. The established protocols suggest only women personnel must deal with women protesters or criminals.
"Look at this inspector of Delhi Police who is slapping away. The women were protesting against rising inflation. This inspector started fighting with them," the Congress said tweeting a video of the incident.
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the protesters were only exercising their democratic right to protest.
"Today they have broken all protocols by sending male officers to manhandle Mahila Congress workers protesting intolerable rise in prices of essential commodities. They were only exercising their democratic right to agitate lawfully," he tweeted.
But the protesters did not have prior permission to stage the demonstration, said the police sources. Large gatherings are banned in the area, they added.
Congress leader KC Venugopal called the cops "BJP goons in uniform" and sought to know who gave instructions to the male officials to "manhandle" the women workers. "Women bear the largest brunt of price rise and the BJP believes in quashing their protest, not in addressing their pain," he added.
Women officers were at the spot; the protesters were trying to damage some statues and stop the cops from doing their duty, news agency PTI cited a senior official as saying.