Under shadow of lathis and barricades: The day the Modi govt finally engaged the CJP

Thousands of protesters marching towards Parliament as part of the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) demonstration were met with barricades, tear gas, lathi blows and detentions as a heavy police deployment tried to contain the march.

Curiously, the government engaged the protest’s representatives only on the protest’s 30th day, coinciding with the ‘Chalo Sansad’ march. CJP spokesperson Saurav Das said he and Ashutosh Ranka were on their way to meet senior BJP leader and Union health minister JP Nadda on the organisation’s behalf, adding that the government had reached out for talks that morning. “Our demands are clear,” he said, noting the scale of the turnout: “The youth has gathered in huge numbers.”

Several MPs joined the march as both houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day following opposition sloganeering around the protest. In the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge raised the NEET paper leak issue and the ongoing protests, telling the House: “Thousands of students have gathered at Jantar Mantar for this cause. A lathi-charge has taken place there. The government is trying to use force, suppress voices, and drive them away.”

Several entry gates to Parliament were shut. Nearby, police personnel, including some in plainclothes, detained protesters and put them onto buses near the front line. Internet services were suspended in parts of central Delhi and traffic routes leading to it choked.

Protest handled professionally?

Many managed to breach the barricades.

One detained protester told Newslaundry that the police had “resorted to lathi-charge” against “the country’s youth" and accused plainclothes personnel of mistreatment. Neha, one of three AISA students who had been on an indefinite hunger strike, rejected the framing of the incident as a “clash”, calling it instead a “lathi charge” and accusing the government of responding to youth protest “only ever” with violence.

Delhi Police had initially issued an official statement denying that any violence or detentions had taken place, saying the protest was “being handled professionally” and asking the public not to “fall prey to any rumour”. 

But RPF personnel and Delhi Police used lathis for crowd control in several spots, such as near the Kerala House lane. Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) MP Chandrashekhar Azad were both present at the site when the confrontation broke out.

Speaking to Newslaundry, one protester alleged that police had struck him with a lathi on his knee, pointing to his injury. Another protester captured on camera was seen walking with one of his arms bleeding, with those around him claiming he had been struck by police. His friend from Uttar Pradesh’s Etah claimed the administration was being “sympathetic” to politicians. 

Among those detained and loaded onto buses was a student from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, who told Newslaundry he had left his job in Pune to attend the march. “This country has developed a habit of servitude,” he said, adding that he was protesting “to ensure justice for the cause we are standing up for.” 

One protester who had come to support the students told Newslaundry she found it motivating to watch her fellow protesters stand their ground even as they faced a “direct lathi-charge” without saying a word or offering any provocation. Her message to the government: “Please listen to the students. They aren’t protesting for the wrong reasons; protesting is our right, and no one can take that right away from us.”

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, who ended his hunger strike on Sonam Wangchuk’s request, separately alleged that male police personnel had used lathis against women protesters during the march.

Arman, from Greater Noida, who said he wasn’t a student but had come to support them, told Newslaundry he was injured while shielding three young women from the police’s batons during a charge he described as brutal. Pointing to a head injury, he alleged that the police continued swinging batons “from above” even as people around him bled, and that the police “eased up” only after Chandrashekhar Azad arrived at the site – before that, he said, they had “lathi-charged us mercilessly”.

Protesters travelled from across the country

Newslaundry’s reporters on the ground found protesters, both young and old, who had travelled from as far as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Tolstoy Marg, connecting Janpath and Sansad Marg, was packed with people who had arrived the previous night, while the designated protest site at Jantar Mantar was completely full and cordoned off by police barricades on both sides.

A group of five who had travelled from Rajpura, Punjab, told Newslaundry they had left home around 11 pm and reached Delhi between 8 and 9 am, eating puri and pickles brought from home to stay within a tight budget. 

“The NEET paper was leaked; Dharmendra Pradhan should resign,” one of them said, questioning the scale of the security deployment: “Do they think we are bringing bombs or pistols? Just go about your work normally; everything has been peaceful for the past twenty days.” He also pointed to the police's refusal to grant permission for the march despite tolerating other illegal activity in the area. All five said they were students.

More protesters arriving in groups of 100 to 500 told Newslaundry they had come from Chhatarpur district in Madhya Pradesh, and from Gaya and Sitamarhi districts in Bihar.

Among the protesters was Mati, a social activist from the Gandhi Ashram in Sevagram, Wardha, who was seen sitting atop an ambulance holding a copy of the Preamble to the Constitution. Asked why she had come, she told Newslaundry that she stood with “those seeking justice” whenever she saw injustice, describing herself as a lifelong Gandhian.

On the hunger strike and the CJP’s core demand, she said it was the country’s “good fortune” to have a figure like Sonam Wangchuk undertake such a fast, and that a resignation “must certainly happen” given the stakes for the country’s youth. She questioned why such a large crowd needed to gather over the resignation of a single leader: “We haven’t demanded the Prime Minister’s resignation; we have only demanded the resignation of one individual to bring about systemic change. Yet, we have to gather such a huge crowd just for the resignation of a single leader. This is democracy in name only.”

She also questioned the requirement that protesters seek police permission to demonstrate: “If one has to seek permission to protest, then what kind of ‘right to protest’ is it? ... At this rate, the police – under government orders – will never grant permission. So, what is the public supposed to do? The public has only one weapon? To protest – to raise their voice.”

On Janpath Road, where Newslaundry found the crowd still pouring in even as the Jantar Mantar protest site filled up to capacity, Akanksha Bharadwaj, a political science student at Delhi University, said the government’s lack of response to the protests – despite hunger strikes and the size of the crowds – sent “a very bad message”. 

She pointed to Sonam Wangchuk’s detention as the government’s only real engagement with the movement so far: “In the Motherland of Democracy, Sonam Wangchuk, who is a renowned scientist, goes on a hunger strike and there is no response from the government. The only response there is that the government steals Sonam Wangchuk and takes him away, wrapping him in white cloth. Like this is the only interaction with the protesters.” She added that the government's handling of the protest did not reflect democratic values.

Security clampdown

Thousands of protesters had gathered near Jantar Mantar by Monday morning, prompting Delhi Police to call in reinforcements from all 14 districts, with each asked to send an ACP-rank officer and 100 personnel to New Delhi district, The Indian Express reported. This was in addition to 32 companies of paramilitary forces already deployed, alongside prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), sealed routes to Parliament and enhanced CCTV surveillance..

Mobile internet was shut down in parts of central Delhi as several-thousand-strong crowds had gathered, with protesters arriving in batches of hundreds and crowding Tolstoy Marg at the north end of the protest strip. 

The DMRC shut five metro stations – Rajiv Chowk, Janpath, Patel Chowk, Central Secretariat and Seva Teerth – over security concerns, stranding commuters and forcing many onto longer routes. At Patel Chowk, security personnel used “mild force” to disperse people heading towards the protest site, per a PTI report, and videos showed passengers climbing over barricades and locked gates to exit stations after access points were shut.

Earlier today, Newslaundry’s reporters observed that barricades at the Jantar Mantar entrance – some over six feet tall – were welded shut, including to the boundary grille of a nearby church, to prevent protesters from removing them. Protesters had already dismantled an earlier set of barricades that morning. 

Despite the measures, protesters broke through, crossed the SBI building on Sansad Marg, and continued towards Parliament; police later removed the barricades themselves after a brief scuffle, allowing the march to proceed, The Indian Express reported. Protesters also gathered near Patel Chowk and inside Rajiv Chowk metro station as the march intensified, per the same report, with the Patel Chowk metro gates shut amid the crowd.

The Hindu reported that tear gas shells were fired near the Press Club of India to disperse the crowd, while security forces also fired tear gas near Shastri Bhawan to push protesters back as they continued advancing towards Parliament amid tight security, according to a PTI report.

Newslaundry’s reporters on the ground witnessed police dispersing and lathi-charging protesters near Janpath Metro station. Among those assaulted was a protester identified as Ramit Verma, the creator of Official PeeingHuman, whose head was injured. The situation deteriorated further as police fired tear gas in the area, leaving many protesters coughing and struggling to breathe.

AISA students end 22-day hunger strike

AISA’s Neha, Manish and Ameen ended their hunger strike after a delegation of opposition parliamentarians, civil society members and other eminent persons appealed to them. Ameen told Newslaundry that the decision was not a retreat but preparation to escalate the protest nationally, comparing it to farmers crossing the Shambhu border during the farm-law protests. He said the movement aims to see “Jantar Mantars” spring up in other cities, noting protests already under way in Bengaluru, Allahabad and reportedly Ranchi.

Wangchuk, still admitted at Safdarjung Hospital, wrote to the hospital saying he was fit to be discharged, even temporarily, to join the Parliament march. In a statement, he said he would end his fast if either the government took accountability for recent failures in the education system, including the paper leaks, or if he and CJP’s leadership reached Parliament and secured an assurance from MPs and party leaders that the issue would be raised in the House. He added that if his health did not permit this, he wanted MPs and leaders to visit him at the hospital and give the same assurance.

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