INDIAN police used excessive force against youth-led protests that led to the education minister's resignation last month, Amnesty International said Monday, citing witness testimony and visual evidence it had verified.
The rights group said police used "pellet-firing shotguns, tear gas launchers, grenades, batons and electric shock devices against protesters" in New Delhi and Bihar. It also said it had 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," Amnesty said.
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The report contrasts with the police account that force was used only after protesters became violent. Delhi Police told the Supreme Court last week that protesters had "resorted to violence" and said anti-social elements "masquerading as aggrieved students" caused "grievous injuries" to security forces.
The protests began in New Delhi after the leak of the national medical entrance test and turned violent on July 20 when thousands of protesters tried to march towards parliament. Amnesty said there were "isolated incidents of protesters throwing stones", but described the response as "state-sanctioned violence masked as crowd control."
The Supreme Court set up a panel on Thursday to investigate violence by both police and demonstrators.
On Friday, opposition 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 July 20 demonstration. Gandhi demanded a police investigation into the shooting, and officers later registered a case over the complaint.
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Led by the online Cockroach Janta Party, the protests expanded from anger over exam irregularities into a wider movement over unemployment, opportunities for young people and what critics describe as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's increasingly authoritarian rule.
The protests became the biggest challenge Modi had faced after winning a third term in 2024.
(With inputs from agencies)
