Indian authorities are using abusive methods to crack down on thousands of peaceful protesters in New Delhi and other Indian cities, Human Rights Watch said today. The protests, led by the Gen Z Cockroach Janta Party, opposition parties, student organizations, and civil society groups, have demanded the resignation of the country's top election official over alleged wrongdoing and the scrapping of a contentious voter list revision process.
As the protests grew in October 2026, the police have beat protesters, forcibly dragged them on the streets and stuffed them into vans and buses, arbitrarily detained them, imposed excessive restrictions on movement, and suspended mobile internet services. The authorities have also harassed and arbitrarily detained journalists covering the protests.
"Police in Delhi are responding to peaceful protests with seemingly unnecessary or excessive force and have wrongfully detained thousands of people," said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The Modi government should stop throwing young protesters in jail and instead engage with them to address concerns over the right to vote and fairness of elections."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration should stop the ill-treatment and arbitrary detention of protesters, allow people to protest peacefully, and restore mobile internet services and freedom of movement, Human Rights Watch said.
Since June 2025, the Election Commission of India has carried out a nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to clean electoral rolls, ostensibly to remove any dead, duplicate, or ineligible voters. But the process, which has deleted more than 130 million names so far, has been arbitrary and opaque, prompting fears of mass disenfranchisement, and is disproportionately affecting Muslims and other religious minorities, women, and people living in poverty. Protest leaders and opposition parties allege that the commission has manipulated the lists to benefit Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The protests began on September 25, soon after the Indian Express published its investigation into alleged irregularities in the revision process. The newspaper found that the Election Commission's two commissioners had raised multiple objections against decisions by the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar. Petitions challenging the revision process and seeking Kumar's removal are before the Supreme Court.
As protests in Delhi grew in October, security forces arbitrarily arrested and assaulted numerous protesters each day, and took them to undisclosed locations, later releasing many of them. Those detained included journalists and political opposition leaders, including four former chief ministers and Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition.
When the protests began, Delhi Police released a set of "guidelines," instructing journalists to "carry valid identity cards" that are "visibly displayed," to "not obstruct police operations," and to "maintain a reasonable and safe distance." On October 11, the Supreme Court directed that lawyers and journalists "should not be impeded from carrying out their professional duties."
On October 10 and 11, officials arbitrarily detained at least 30 journalists who were covering the protests. Four journalists' organizations condemned the police actions, saying that journalists were "bundled into buses" used to detain protesters, and that police seized some of their phones and equipment.
Three female journalists alleged that Delhi police officers sexually harassed them during the protests.
A journalist from the magazine Caravan said that on October 11, police officers in Delhi hit him on the head several times, slapped him, and assaulted him with a rifle butt while he recorded them detaining a protester.
"My press card was hanging by my neck but they still dragged me into the bus, ripping my shirt buttons," a 31-year-old journalist told Human Rights Watch. Police detained him in a bus on October 10, and he was released only after the bus overheated and caught fire. "We could smell the fumes and had to shout at them to get us out," he said.
"The police personnel assaulted me and pinned me to the seat," said John Brittas, a member of parliament participating in the protests, in a letter to the chief justice of India.
The Cockroach Janta Party called for a protest on October 10 at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in Delhi. In response the authorities deployed over 40,000 security forces, canceled trains, shut down 43 metro stations, and suspended mobile internet services. Police took three Cockroach Janta Party leaders into custody aboard an airplane after it landed in Delhi, dragged several protesters from trains and buses who were traveling to Delhi, and put some youth leaders under house arrest. Air India has sought a response from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security on how security forces entered its aircraft without prior authorization.
On October 9, a police officer entered a Delhi mosque during Friday prayers to warn Muslims against participating in any "unnecessary protests." The next day, police officials entered a Sikh temple in central Delhi to detain protesters who sought refuge there. Citizens for Fraternity-Bharat (CFF-Bharat), a civil society group that includes former government officials, has questioned why police entered religious premises and called for an independent inquiry.
On October 11, India's Supreme Court directed the authorities to ensure that people gathering peacefully are not illegally detained, internet services are restored, and people and traffic are allowed to move freely, subject to lawful restrictions. Thus far, the authorities appear to have ignored the directions.
A journalist, 26, told Human Rights Watch he witnessed at least three instances in which BJP supporters and police chased protesters together. "It is collaborative," said the journalist, who covered the protests on October 10. "The police looked on and did not stop the violence." A female journalist, 27, said a group of about five men, some of them wearing saffron scarves, were beating protesters and targeting female journalists. "They were shouting at us, mocking us, and showing us the middle finger," she said. "I saw two policemen laughing while the right-wing goons were kicking and beating protesters."
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concerns over the mass detention of demonstrators and said that the government should engage in meaningful dialogue. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs called the statement "unwarranted" and "an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of India."
The Indian government should publicly direct security forces to respond to protests in accordance with international standards, notably the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, Human Rights Watch said.
"Indian authorities should allow people to protest peacefully by resuming transport services, removing unnecessary barricades, restoring the internet, and ensuring media freedom," Pearson said. "Peaceful protest and freedom of expression are fundamental rights protected under the international human rights law that India's leaders claim to uphold."
