Police used excessive force during Delhi protests: Amnesty

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Cockroach Janta Party supporters celebrate as Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns after protest over examination irregularities and NEET paper leak, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on July 25, 2026. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

Police used excessive force, including electric shock devices and pellet guns, against youth-led protests that forced Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign last month, Amnesty International said Monday (August 24, 2026).

A report from the rights' group clashes with the police account that force was used only after protesters turned violent, and comes after the Supreme Court set up a panel on Thursday (August 20, 2026) to investigate violence by both police and demonstrators.

Demonstrations in New Delhi, triggered by the leak of NET-UG paper, turned violent on July 20 when thousands of protesters attempted to march towards Parliament.

Amnesty said witness testimony and visual evidence it had verified confirmed the use of "pellet-firing shotguns, tear gas launchers, grenades, batons and electric shock devices against protesters" in Delhi and Bihar.

Amnesty said it had also verified two instances of a police officer "unlawfully using lethal force against a crowd" in Bihar's Siwan district. No one was killed. "The weapons were deployed in a manner that breached international law and standards and domestic policing guidelines," it added.

Amnesty said that there were "isolated incidents of protesters throwing stones", but that the "heavy-handed response was state-sanctioned violence masked as crowd control."

Delhi Police said in a Supreme Court hearing last week they had used force only after protesters "resorted to violence". They said anti-social elements "masquerading as aggrieved students" caused "grievous injuries" to security forces.

On Friday (August 21, 2026), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi staged a sit-in outside a Delhi police station with a 19-year-old protester who said he was injured by pellets during the demonstration.

Mr. Gandhi demanded a police investigation into the shooting, and officers later registered a case over the complaint.

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