gherao

noun

1. (India)A protest in which a group of people surrounds a politician, building, etc. until demands are met.

   “They had done a gherao and trapped the manager in his office for a whole day.”

   “This was an invitation to strike: according to one estimate, there were more than 1,200 gheraos in the first six months of the first UF-LF government.”

   “They led us in a mob to the administrative office of the Patna University, blockaded the main entrance and besieged the vice chancellor's office in a gherao […]”

verb

1. (India, transitive)To surround for this purpose.

   “One day the city magistrate asked the army for help to curb a protest march by women Congress workers who had threatened to gherao the officials in the divisional office.”

   “In reply, the cultivators, apparently now protesting under the banner of the BKU gheraoed the power station.”

   “Further incensed by the findings of two Citizen's Inquiry Committees that he had set up to probe the earlier police firings in Gaya and Patna, JP now announced a programme that involved picketing the Assembly, gheraoing the residences of MLAs, […]”