CJP alleges Delhi Police excesses during protest crackdown.
Angmo said Wangchuk will end his hunger strike only if his three conditions are fulfilled, despite remaining hospitalised.
- CJP said police used excessive force during the “Sansad Chalo” march.
- Dipke alleged several students were injured and Angmo was manhandled.
- Police denied those claims and said no one was targeted.
- Around 70 protesters were detained, and an FIR is being registered.
- The protest continued near Kerala House after the Jantar Mantar site was cleared.
New Delhi: The clash around the Cockroach Janta Party’s “Sansad Chalo” march has opened yet another tense chapter in the battle between protest politics and policing in the capital. What began as a student-led demand for accountability over education issues turned into a noisy, bitter confrontation on Monday, with both sides accusing the other of crossing the line.
For the protesters, the mood was one of anger and exhaustion. By evening, the stage at Jantar Mantar had been dismantled, the planned march toward Parliament had been stopped, and the movement’s leaders had shifted their sit-in to a spot near Kerala House. Yet even after the crowd was pushed back, the message from CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and his colleagues was unchanged: the protest would continue, and the pressure on the government would not ease.
Dipke’s accusations were sharp and personal. He alleged that police used brutal force, claimed that several students were injured, and said Gitanjali J Angmo, wife of Sonam Wangchuk, was pushed and nearly dragged away during the crackdown. For supporters watching the scene unfold, those claims deepened the sense that a peaceful gathering had turned into something far more confrontational, and that students were being treated as a law-and-order problem rather than citizens demanding to be heard.
The human side of the protest matters because the issue at its core is not abstract. Angmo’s remarks about widespread support for the movement, and Wangchuk’s hunger strike at Safdarjung Hospital, show how quickly a march has grown into a broader symbol of frustration among young people. The protest has come to represent fears about paper leaks, weak government schools, and a system many students feel is failing them before their lives have properly begun.
The Delhi Police, however, gave a completely different account. In a statement and on X, the force rejected claims that Angmo was assaulted or that officers pulled her hair, calling those allegations false and misleading. Police said no individuals were subjected to targeted assault and argued that the protesters themselves behaved aggressively, violated prohibitory orders, threw stones, damaged vehicles and public property, and attempted to breach barricades despite repeated warnings.
According to police, more than 118 personnel were injured in the clashes, and around 15 to 20 government vehicles were vandalised. The force said about 70 protesters had been detained and that legal proceedings were underway under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and other laws. That version of events paints the day as not a peaceful protest interrupted by police, but a volatile confrontation that officers say they were forced to contain.
What makes this episode so politically charged is the way it blends student anger, celebrity activism and direct confrontation with authority. Wangchuk’s hunger strike has given the movement a moral centre, while Angmo’s visible role has added a deeply personal dimension to the protest. At the same time, the police account frames the whole event as an order-and-safety crisis, one that required immediate intervention to prevent further escalation.
For now, neither side appears ready to back down. The CJP says the protest will go on. Police say strict action will follow. And somewhere between those two positions are the students, parents and supporters who arrived in Delhi hoping to be heard, only to find themselves in the middle of a clash that has now become as much about trust as it is about education.