Delhi student protests · July 2026

We won’t
look away.

Students marched peacefully in Delhi. They were met with batons, tear gas, and men in plain clothes. The news called them violent. The court said it did not want to watch the videos. This page is a record, kept so that someone did.

How it started

It began with an exam.

If you are coming to this cold, here is the whole thing in order. It runs from a leaked question paper to a word said in a courtroom to a country full of students who will not go home.

Around two million students sit NEET, the exam that decides who gets to become a doctor in India. The question paper has already leaked. The exam is cancelled. In the weeks that follow, about a dozen student suicides are linked to that cancellation.

Hearing a matter connected to the leaks, the Chief Justice of India describes people who attack institutions as parasites, and reportedly likens some jobless young people and activists to cockroaches.

Abhijeet Dipke, a communications strategist and student, takes the insult and turns it into a banner. He founds the Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical answer to the ruling party’s name. Millions follow it within days.

The sit-ins begin at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, joined by long-established student unions. The ask is narrow and repeated: hold someone accountable for the leaks, starting with the resignation of the education minister.

It stops being a Delhi story. Students march in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Patna, Kolkata, Goa, Kerala and Ladakh. In Patna, police fire tear gas too.

Police clear the Delhi protest with tear gas and batons. More than a hundred students are injured. Mobile internet is cut in central Delhi and the metro is shut. Almost all of it is filmed.

A plea over the police action reaches the Supreme Court. The court declines an urgent hearing and says it does not want to watch the videos. The same court whose word became the movement’s name will not look at what happened to it.

They are still on the street, in Delhi and well beyond it.

What happened

They were sitting down.

In June 2026, a youth movement that called itself the Cockroach Janta Party began protesting over leaked exam papers, unemployment, and corruption. The name reclaims an insult: it followed a remark in which the Chief Justice reportedly likened jobless young people to cockroaches. On 20 July, thousands marched toward Parliament, defying a police ban, to ask for the education minister’s resignation.

Human Rights Watch reviewed ten videos and interviewed nine witnesses. It documented tear gas fired into seated protesters, officers beating demonstrators with batons, and three men in plain clothes swinging plastic batons beside the police. Many officers wore no name tags. Facial recognition was turned on the crowd. One young woman was left in critical condition.

The Delhi Police said the protesters were violent, and put the injured at nearly 180, including 118 security personnel and 60 protesters. In central Delhi, mobile internet was cut and the metro was shut. That is how a beating becomes hard to see.

Drone footage of the gathering at Jantar Mantar, showing thousands. Source

The footage

This is what they called violent.

Before the batons, this is what the protest looked like. Thousands of people, sitting, standing, singing, and going home at two in the morning.

Protesters chanting “azadi”, meaning freedom. Sound on. Source

2am at Jantar Mantar on 23 July. The crowd is calm. Source

Scenes outside Jantar Mantar. Source

In their words

“The protesters were just sitting there, begging the police not to beat them.”

A lawyer who was present, to Human Rights Watch

“I saw male police officers bashing up women.”

A photojournalist, to Human Rights Watch

Sources for this section

Children holding protest signs. Source

The court

“We don’t want to watch the videos.”

On 22 July, a lawyer sought an urgent listing of a petition against the police action. When he pressed that there were videos showing police excesses, the Chief Justice of India said: “We are not interested in videos, we don’t have time to watch.” And then: “Don’t waste our time. We don’t want to watch any videos.”

So we will keep the videos. We will keep watching.

The evidence

What the court would not watch.

These are the videos. They are hard to watch, which is the point. Nothing here is cropped or slowed.

Graphic footage

Police beating protesters. Source

Graphic footage

Police throwing stones at students, while other officers shield them. Source

Graphic footage

Police beating women and students. Source

Legal notice

On what basis this is published.