In the hinterland of Bengal, mostly hidden from the attention of the mainstream media, Hindutva outfits are mounting a sustained assault against small Christian communities.

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party assumed power in West Bengal in May, these minority communities have faced rising hostility. Hindutva outfits and fringe groups have attacked community members, disrupted church services and vandalised churches, frequently alleging forced conversion or proselytisation as justification for the harassment and violence.

The police have registered FIRs in several of these incidents, but no action has been taken against the perpetrators. Instead, victims are being taken to police stations, said Herod Mullick, founder of the Bangiya Christiya Pariseba or Bengal Christian Council.

“Over the past two-and-a-half to three months, such incidents have increased across districts, following a similar pattern,” Mullick told Alt News. “We have repeatedly sought a meeting with the chief minister, demanding an impartial investigation. But the government is not paying heed. So many people are being beaten, crosses are being broken, and someone or the other is being subjected to harassment every other day. The chief minister has not said a single word. We are all frightened and anxious.”

Asked about the allegations of forced conversion, he said, “Conversion does not happen by simply gathering people and sprinkling water on them. False narratives are being deliberately created. The Christian church is totally opposed to converting people forcefully or through fear. If any group is engaging in anything unlawful, we dissociate ourselves from it.”

Mullick explained that an established church is a long-standing congregation with its own church building, while a free or house church comprises smaller congregations, often of first-generation Christians, who are not affiliated with an established church. In most of the cases, these house churches are facing the attacks.

Alt News has documented around 35 such incidents from July to September 20.

September 20: Khejuri, East Midnapore

A group of around 50 people affiliated with Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal raided a Church in Dekhali Jalpai village of Khejuri Block II, East Midnapore, during Sunday prayer service on September 20, demanding that the church be immediately shut down.

Video shows one of the members of the mob saying, “Christianity is not an Indian culture” and that the Bible was not written in India or in an Indian language. The discussion soon escalated into a confrontation, with worshippers allegedly being assaulted, heckled and manhandled.

“Around 12 noon, around 70-80 unknown men entered the church chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’,” Lucky Jana, who led the prayer, told Alt New. “They told us to stop the proceedings and warned us to close the church.”

There were around 20 worshippers that day, Jana said. “The group refused to listen to our attempts to reason with them, and suddenly, the situation became violent,” he said.

In addition, Jana said, “They physically heckled us. They pulled my collar and intimidated me. Multiple attendees got hurt. They even hit a juvenile – the grandson of the pastor.” Jana added that the church has existed for 28-30 years and that this was the first time they had faced such intimidation, apart from isolated incidents during Christmas.

Jana said the church had anticipated possible disruption and had requested police protection for its Sunday prayers. Two civic police personnel were present during the altercation. An FIR was filed at Khejuri police station.

The attackers locked the church and wrote “Ram” all over its walls and doors.

September 16: Amta, Howrah

Putul Manna and her husband Kanchan Manna, residents of Ghoraberia Dakshin Bhatora village in Amta, told The Times of India that a group of men barged into their house while they were hosting a prayer meeting on September 16. The couple alleged that the group threatened them with eviction and told them to renounce Christianity.

“They told us to renounce Christianity and convert to Hinduism, warning that we would otherwise be forcefully evicted from our property,” Putul Manna said. “We initially thought of leaving our house… but I have two sons, one of them is 10 years old. Why should they be evicted from their ancestral home? I have lodged a police complaint.”

Digital news outlet Inscript.me interviewed the distressed couple, who recounted their ordeal. “When we said we can’t renounce our faith, we were told we had to leave that night itself,” said Kanchan Manna.

However, Sanjay Paul, an officer from Joypur police station, told Alt News that no complaint had been lodged. He also informed us that the couple had not been evicted from their home.

September 13: Dantan, West Midnapore

A group of saffron-clad men disrupted a Sunday prayer service at a house church in Sirni village in Talda, Dantan, in West Midnapore, on September 13. The group chanted “Jai Sri Ram.”

In a video uploaded by one of the disruptors, Indrajit Das, the men appear to intimidate those attending the prayer. One of them can be heard saying, “Christianity is not an Indian religion. The Indian government doesn’t provide a national holiday or celebrate any Christian auspicious occasion”. He further claimed that India doesn’t allow the practice of Christianity.

The confrontation escalated into a heated altercation. The Hindutva team allegedly threatened to tie the worshippers to tree trunks if they did not comply.

Ashalata Murmu, who was leading the service, recounted the incident to The Times of India. One of the men told them, “Don’t you know that the government has declared churches and mosques are closed? None of this can be done anymore.” When Nayak said he was unaware of any such order and refused to comply, he was allegedly assaulted.

September 12: Joypur, Bankura

A group of more than 20 men, identifying themselves as members of Hindutva outfits such as the Hindu Jagran Manch and Bajrang Dal, allegedly confronted a woman, Tulsi Das, at her home in Shalpudanga village, Shyamnagar, Joypur, Bankura, accusing her of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity.

Das rejected the allegations. She said she was a Hindu but chooses to pray to Jesus, which she said is not illegal. Three or four other women worshippers present at her home said Das neither solicited nor offered money to them. They said she had told them that praying to God could help with healing.

The Hindutva members allegedly threatened that Das would be suspended from school, where she taught and socially boycotted unless she wrote a letter admitting to the “treacherous crime” of converting Hindus.

Videos of the confrontation and intimidation were uploaded by Facebook user Sudip Roy. The entire exchange can be heard in the videos shared by him.

September 10: Kulpi, South 24 Parganas

A Facebook video uploaded by Raja Pramanik, who claims to be the head of the Bajrang Dal Kulpi unit, shows members of Bajrang Dal and VHP Kulpi together confronting “Christian Jihadis” in Patkelberia village of Ishwarpur, Kulpi, on September 10, announcing that they had stopped Hindus from being converted to Christianity.

In the video, the group is seen misbehaving with elderly people, shouting and aggravating the situation. They tore up a Bible being carried by an elderly woman and threatened the worshippers with consequences if they did not stop praying to Jesus.

When the worshippers attempted to explain their position, one woman was threatened, “Jib tene chirey debo.” I’ll tear your tongue out.

The women in the house repeatedly said they had neither forced anyone to visit their homes nor pressured anyone to adopt Christianity, and that they were worshipping Jesus of their own choice.

September 10: Panskura, East Midnapore

Several videos uploaded by a VHP member named Malay Saha on Facebook show members of Bajrang Dal Panskura confronting worshippers and claiming to have stopped a “conversion trap” in Ward No. 6 of Baldingra, Panskura, on September 10.

The video shows self-proclaimed saviours of Hindutva intimidating, heckling, and halting a prayer. They said, “One cannot practice Christianity in a Hindu village.”

The group barged into the house and alleged that in Christianity, men married their own daughters. They also asked them not to accept government benefits, saying Jesus would provide for them.

The worshippers were made to bow in front of a Tulsi plant, chant “Hare Krishna “, and state their names. One of the worshippers was mute; she couldn’t speak, but was continuously heckled by the miscreants. The police eventually intervened.

Alt News contacted Malay Saha, who identified himself as a VHP member. He said police had warned the worshippers but had not detained anyone. When we wanted to speak further, he refused.

September 6: Kulpi, South 24 Parganas

Members of Bajrang Dal, Durga Bahini and other Hindutva outfits allegedly raided a house where local Christians were praying. The group reportedly tore the religious books, physically heckled, mistreated, intimidated, and publicly humiliated people for worshipping Jesus and practising Christianity. Accusations of religious conversion followed, and eventually police were called to take action against the worshippers.

Several videos uploaded by a user, Proloy Purkait, show women being heckled, religious books being torn, and attendees being told to remove sindur (vermillion) and other symbols allegedly associated with Hinduism. “Jai Sri Ram” slogans can also be heard.

In another video shared by Amit Halder, a Bajrang Dal Kulpi member, a worshipper named Partha Purkait says he identifies as Hindu and reads both the Gita and the Bible, having studied at Ramakrishna Mission. The men questioned why a Hindu would read the Bible and asked whether he had also performed namaz.

The video above shows a woman member from the Hindutva group attempting to slap a young girl after she said, “Hail Jesus.”

Police warned Purkait not to visit the village again and said no such incidents should recur. They also told the Hindutva members that there was no legal basis to take action against the worshippers.

September 6: Dantan, West Midnapore

A Christian man was allegedly held captive by a group of 20 Hindutva men and villagers over accusations of Christian proselytisation.

In a video, the man said he had gone to the house of a man named Nitai, who had accepted Jesus, to conduct Sunday prayers. While he was singing hymns and leading the service, the group allegedly detained him.

They accused him of insulting Hindus and provoking people to slaughter cows in a Hindu village. They told him that Christian religious practices should be conducted in a church and not in a Hindu village or at a Hindu man’s home.

One of the hecklers said, “This is Hindustan. And you are practising Christianity and also converting people to Christianity. You should be thrown out of the country”. They asked, “Which terrorist from Pakistan sends funds to you, or is it coming from Bangladesh?”

The video also shows a man being threatened with a public beating. One of the men says, quite inexplicably, “These are jihadi terrorists. Muslims agents.”

September 5: Kulpi, South 24 Parganas

Members of Bajrang Dal Kulpi and VHP stormed into a house during a prayer gathering in a village in Ramnagar, Ishawarpur, Kulpi assembly constituency.

Alt News identified a few of the hecklers. The man wearing a saffron kurta in the video above is Bikash Sardar, who tore the religious books that the attendees were carrying. The group kept accusing the owner of the house and the host of the prayer meeting of converting Hindus and preaching Christianity, which the victims continuously deny.

One in the group says, “Today BJP is in power, and so you are safe, or else you would have been raped and dumped”. They asked the booth secretary to refuse to give government aid to the Christian worshippers. “If one has to stay in India, has to stay with Ram and Krishna. If you want to pray to Jesus, then go to London.”

Raja Pramanik heckled an elderly widowed woman and told her, “You have engulfed your husband; now you want to engulf your sons as well? That you are preaching Christianity. Have you ever preached the Gita?”

When Alt News spoke to Pramanik, head of Bajrang Dal Kulpi unit, he said, “For the past 22 days, we, the Bajrang Dal, have been conducting daily raids at places where conversions are taking place.”

He alleged, “Christians are receiving foreign funds and offering financial incentives to poor Hindu villagers to convert them. Most of the people have told us that they were suffering from an illness, and praying to Jesus has helped them heal. How is that even possible? Everything is a scam.”

“If one is a Christian from birth, we have no issues. But why always, Hindus are converted to Christianity? Not in a single congregation did we find a single Muslim,” he added.

Alt News also spoke to Dipan Ghosh, a Bajrang Dal member who had uploaded several videos of such incidents but later removed them. Asked why, he said, “Our seniors have asked us to take the videos down, as a few ‘Hindu-virodhi’ and ‘anti-national’ elements are portraying our work in a negative light.”

They threatened, “If in future we get to know something like this is happening again, the entire Bajrang Dal team will come and destroy the entire house. Beware.”

September 5: Sonamukhi, Bankura

A video uploaded by a user named Akshay Baru, who identifies himself as a “BJP lover, ABVP lover, and Kattar Hindu” in his Facebook bio, shows a group of men entering a congregation organised by Friends Fellowship Haldia, in Sonamukhi, Bankura. The caption says that the raid was carried out by Bajrang Dal. The group accused the gathering of being a mass conversion programme.

The video shows men assaulting the pastor, twisting his hands and snatching the Bible from him, attempting to tear it apart when women attendees intervened.

September 3: Panskura, East Midnapore

Malay Saha, who told Alt News that he was a Bajrang Dal member, uploaded a video on Facebook alleging that Hindu children, women and elderly people were invited to a Christian meeting held at a rented guest house for Christian preaching and religious conversion on September 3. The gathering, at Panskura station road in East Midnapore district, was allegedly raided and stopped by groups of Hindutva outfits.

The video shows attendees being verbally harassed and warned that religious conversion will not be permitted in the “new Bengal”.

August 30: Hingalganj, North 24 Parganas

Members of Bangiya Hindu Jagaran Manch raided a Christian prayer meeting at Hingalganj in North 24 Parganas. They harassed the attendees, including a person from Argentina who was involved in and leading the Christian prayers, along with local Christian attendees. The members accused them of facilitating religious conversions, questioned why they were reading the Bible instead of the Gita, and challenged their right to conduct private prayer meetings in their homes without permission in a Hindu locality.

According to the Dainik Bhaskar, police detained three people, including two foreign nationals. Locals alleged that people from Australia, Germany, and Argentina often visited the house and offered money to locals in lieu of conversion to Christianity.

Several calls to Hingalganj police station went unanswered.

August 26: Tamluk, Purba Midnapore

A group that gathered for a prayer meeting at a house in Check Milepost village in East Midnapore was attacked by members of Hindutva outfits, Bangiya Christiya Pariseba founder Herod Mullick told Alt News.

Pastor Joy Sutradhar told The Indian Express, “They were chanting slogans and said we were forcefully converting people… Our community members called up our lawyers, who came to the police station and had us released. Out of fear, we did not file a complaint.” Both the pastor and his wife were beaten up.

Mullick said they later filed a complaint via email.

August 25: Ghusuri, Howrah

The Indian Express reported that a prayer meeting at a house church in Ghusuri, Howrah, was attacked by some vigilantes. Father Suraj Saroj told the newspaper, “Community members were beaten up, and some people were injured. I tried to reason with the mob, but they refused to understand.”

Saroj alleged that police made them wait for hours at the station, and then “enquired about the church, funds and credentials”. “We did not file a complaint. We have decided to suspend all house prayers and visits.”

August 25: Howrah

According to a post by Anti-Christian Tracker Watch, a social media account documenting anti-Christian hate crimes in India, on August 25, a Christian man and woman were brutally assaulted, paraded, humiliated with religious slogans, and the man was forced shirtless by Hindutva extremists. “Later, police arrested both victims; the attackers walked free,” the X post said.

🚨 HOWRAH, WB | 25 AUG'26

Christian man & woman were brutally assaulted, paraded, humiliated with religious slogans, & the man was forced shirtless by Hindutva extremists. Later, police arrested both victims, the attackers walked free.@HRW @IJM @StateIRF @StateDRL @thewire_in pic.twitter.com/MbHpCDuoea

— Anti Christian Tracker Watch - ACT India ✝️ (@ACTWatchIndia) September 4, 2026

August 24: Magrahat, South 24 Parganas

A video was uploaded on Facebook, accompanied by a caption alleging that members of Bajrang Dal and Durga Bahini disrupted a Christian prayer meeting in the Multi Baniberia area of Magrahat, accusing them of converting Hindus by tempting them with money and other inducements.

The video shows the attendees being heckled, harassed, mistreated and humiliated. A Durga Bahini member physically assaulted a woman attendee by twisting her hand, slapping her and strangling her.

Another video shows the same woman beating and showering slaps on other attendees.

Alt News spoke to Bikash Sardar, who uploaded the video. He identified himself as a Bajrang Dal member and said that he was part of the group that raided the house on suspicion of forceful conversion, or conversion under temptation.

“They are wearing shakha [angles worn by married Hindu women] and sindur, and also carrying a Bible and books of Jesus,” he said. “Why? Either they should completely change to Christianity, or be a pious Hindu.”

August 23: Uluberia, Howrah

An called Hindu Sanghati Shyampur branch uploaded a video showing its members raiding a congregation, vandalising property, and harassing attendees. They alleged that Hindus were being forcefully converted at the event.

Alt News spoke to Debasis Pakhira, an official at Brother Sister Relationship Church, which hosted the Sunday Church prayers at a rented house that was ransacked. Pakhira said, “Pastor Mithun Hazra, who led the prayers on that day, was hit on his head by the assailants, and he went unconscious. Later, when the police arrived at the site, Pastor Hazra was admitted to a hospital.”

Pastor Mithun Hazra told the Indian Express, “After treatment, we went to the police station and filed a complaint. Since that day, we have not held house prayers in the area.”

August 23: Hijla, Purulia

According to a post by Hindutva Watch, VHP-Bajrang Dal members, accompanied by police, intervened at a Christian prayer meeting, alleging that it was being used for religious conversions. They accused the owner of the residence of being complicit, said such activities would not be tolerated in a Hindu locality, and described Christianity as a Western practice.

They later held a rally against religious conversions, “love jihad” and cow slaughter.

Watch the video here.

August 16: Durgapur, West Bardhaman

Anti-Christian Tracker Watch reported that on August 16, Hindutva extremists disrupted a Christian worship service at a Nepali para in Durgapur. The elderly and women were intimidated, phones were snatched, and a car was vandalised. The Christians were accused of converting Hindus and gaining a fortune.

DURGAPUR, WB | 16 AUG'26

Hindutva extremists attacked a peaceful Christian worship. Elderly & women intimidated, phones snatched, and a car vandalised.

Peaceful citizens have the right to gather & worship without fear.

Authorities Must ACT!@HRW @USCIRF @Cpadpc @thewire_in pic.twitter.com/p11idM9W21

— Anti Christian Tracker Watch - ACT India ✝️ (@ACTWatchIndia) August 17, 2026

August 14: Sahanagar, East Bardhaman

St Claret Church in Sahanagar, East Bardhaman, was attacked during a gathering, and a funeral was disrupted with where mourners allegedly assaulted, reported the Indian Express. The parish priest Father Samuel Hembrom told the newspaper that the mob demanded to see the papers of the burial ground.

“We said give us some time to get them from the church… we protested,” said Hembrom. “But they did not allow the burial. The body had already been lowered into the grave; the mob took it out. The body had to be taken to another cemetery in Bardhaman town.”

Purba Bardhaman SP Pushpa stated that locals opposed an outsider’s burial on allegedly private property rather than a cemetery. The officer said: “I don’t think there was an assault. However, I will check with the local police station. There was a law and order problem and police priority was to control that.”

August 9: Arambagh, Hooghly

A Facebook page ‘Proud to be a Christian’ uploaded a video on August 9, accompanied by a caption that alleges a Hindutva extremist mob sporting saffron scarves raided a Sunday Christian worship service in Arambagh Church and assaulted Bishop Anil Bhowmick and other believers.

Watch the video here.

August 9: Behala, Kolkata

According to a post by Hindutva Watch, members of Hindu Jagaran Manch raided a church and harassed the pastor and the attendees. They accused the pastor of luring Hindus into conversion by offering money, and warned that religious conversion would not be tolerated in a Hindu-majority locality. The members later staged a protest outside Haridevpur Police Station, demanding action against those involved.

Alt News spoke to Siddharth Mondol, nephew of Anil Kumar Dolui, an evangelist who led the Sunday service of Sodepur church. Mondol told us that this was the first time that they had faced something like this.

“Around 7 pm, a Hindutva mob interrupted the prayer service, heckled, and misbehaved with my uncle,” he said, adding that for the past several years, the Sodepur Church branch held its Sunday prayer service at the rented space, but now “the owner doesn’t want to continue any more”.

After the incident, Dolui had to be hospitalised for 14 days. “Now we have halted our congregations. We have restricted the prayers to just house prayers. Attendees are scared of assaults,” Mondol said, adding, “What we are receiving is violence in return for love and care.”

August 9: Golgram, West Midnapore

According to a post by Hindutva Watch, members of the Bangiya Hindu Jagaran Manch raided a Christian prayer meeting over alleged religious conversions, accusing those present of trying to turn India into a Christian country. They detained individuals they identified as “outside missionaries” and threatened to hand them over to the police.

Watch the video here.

July 31: Nazat, South 24 Parganas

Members of VHP allegedly entered into a Christian mission premises, Claret Premaloy, in Nazat in South 24 Parganas district, confronting Father Anuj Hembrom and issuing a seven-day ultimatum to close the mission and threatening the priests to leave the district.

Father Anuj Hembrom told UCA News that eight to ten men, including one who identified himself as a “local Hindu councillor”, questioned the missionaries and threatened to lock the mission if they did not leave within seven days. They accused them of converting tribal and Hindu families and receiving foreign funds. Three men returned the next morning, prompting the missionaries to file an FIR. Police later visited the institute and assured them of safety.

July 31: Sandeskhali, North 24 Parganas

A group of self-proclaimed monks associated with a Hindu organisation reportedly stormed into the Grace Community Church in Sandeshkhali around 3 pm, pressuring Pastor Santosh Tudu to renounce Christianity and embrace Hinduism, and further alleged that the Church was receiving foreign funds to plot subversive activities.

Speaking to Alt News, pastor Tudu recounted, “Around eight-nine poeple entered the church trying to intimidate me. They accused me of multiple things including converting Hindus with inducements. They tried to create a hostile environment, but I spoke to them with gentleness. They told me I must leave the area by August 5 if I refuse to convert. They promised me a luxurious lifestyle if I gave up my faith. But when I resisted, they branded us Christians as ‘anti-nationals,’ ‘traitors,’ and even ‘terrorists’.”

“I had complained to the police station, but I am not aware whether an FIR was registered or not,” pastor Tudu added.

July 29: Bakrahat, South 24 Parganas

A Facebook user, Dipshikha Mondal, posted a video boasting that members of the Bajrang Dal and Durga Bahini had stormed into a private residence and halted a Christian prayer service. The video shows the group heckling, intimidating, mistreating, and threatening the worshippers. They tore religious books and chanted ‘Jai Sri Ram’. Moreover, the group chanted Hindu mantras, calling it a cleansing ritual.

Alt News could not independently verify the date of the incident. The video was first uploaded by Mondal on July 29.

July 26: Raipur, Bankura

According to a Hindutva Watch post, members of the VHP intervened in a Christian gathering following allegations of attempts to convert Hindus to Christianity. The video shows the group verbally harassing the women leading the prayer meeting, demanding their husbands’ contact details, and asserting that such gatherings would not be permitted in a Hindu-majority neighbourhood.

July 21: Raniganj, West Bardhaman

According to a post uploaded by Hindutva Watch, VHP members, led by Shubham Raut, raided a Christian Sunday prayer meeting, assaulted and harassed the attendees, accusing them of engaging in religious conversion. They handed over 20-25 attendees to the police, who launched an investigation into the gathering.

July 21: Haldia, East Midnapore

A Facebook page called Sanatani Aikkya or Sanatani Unity posted a video boasting that their members, along with Hindu Jagran Manch, had barged into a private residence where Sunday Christian prayers were being held in Chakdwipa, Haldia.

The video shows that the attendees were heckled, verbally abused, mistreated and accused of brainwashing and converting Hindus.

The group questioned whether the gathering had official permission. They asked attendees about their “actual religious identity”, derided Christians and Christianity, and dismissed the faith as fraudulent.

July 18: Baruipur, South 24 Parganas

Hindutva supporters surrounded, followed, and heckled a group of Christian women, accusing them of indulging in religious conversion. They questioned why the women were carrying Bibles while wearing shakha, pola, (bangles worn by some married Hindu women) and sindoor, calling them “sold-out Hindus” who had abandoned their religion for money.

The group continued to harass the women despite their repeated objections, repeatedly referring to them as “bejaat Hindus” and telling them to leave the country, reported Hindutva Watch.

July 12: Barasat, North 24 Parganas

A group of around 60 people reportedly entered the premises of the Auxilium Salesian Sisters in Barasat on July 12 and threatened the nuns with violence unless they immediately demolished a memorial chapel and cemetery currently under construction, according to the FMA Salesian Sisters and the All India Catholic Union.

The FMA Sisters said the project has faced objections following the change in government and has since become the focus of protests, according to the Catholic Connect.

July 5: Subhashgram, South 24 Parganas

Hindutva activists demolished an under-construction church in the Buri Bottala area of Subhashgram in Sonarpur police station area of South 24 parganas district. Geeta Haldar, an evangelist at the church, told Alt News about the harrowing incident.

“Around 15 men attacked the church around 2.30 pm-3 pm, declaring that the church could not be constructed here,” she said/ “They then smashed the window panes and doors. Two men scaled the walls and broke the crosses installed on the roof of the church.”

“I had informed the police. By the time they reached the location, the attackers had fled the area,” Haldar added. Asked whether the attackers were known faces from the locality, Haldar said, “No, they were not immediate locals. The people who live around the church are all Christians.”

Recalling the police action, Haldar said, “Police detained three individuals, but they were not the ones we had seen attacking our church.” She added, “Police and municipality officials have asked us to halt the construction of the church and produce all legitimate documents.”

Haldar alleged that the police were uncooperative when they sought to file an FIR against the attackers. She claimed, “A police officer in civil clothes made racist remarks against our Father Kash Mullick, who hails from Mizoram. He also told us that the FIR could not be registered that day, after keeping us waiting until 8 pm.”

Haldar said, “We have resumed prayer services at a residence in the colony for the time being. But we were deeply hurt to witness such hatred in people’s hearts.”

July 5: Katwa, East Bardhaman

Members of seven Hindutva outfits disrupted a Sunday prayer service at Grace Church in Faridpur, Katwa, East Bardhaman, where Pastor Surajit Ghosh was assaulted along with several other attendees.

“One of the victims of the assault was an 11-year-old boy, Ghosh’s nephew,” Suvashish Gayen, the director of Grace Mission, told Alt News. “Grace Church functions under Grace Mission, a government-registered charitable trust. We are a Christian mission serving the community for 20 years. We also run a children’s school. We do social welfare activities and have a good reputation in the community,”

Pastor Surajit Das narrated the incident to Alt News, “On July 5 at 11 am, while we were conducting regular worship at Grace Church, a mob led by Narattom Saha, Srikanta Chatterjee, Somnath Chowdhury, Susil Das, Pulokesh Biswas, Kanai Debnath and others forcibly entered the premises. They vandalised the church hall, broke doors, assaulted me, my daughter, my nephew and other members, threatened to kill me, and stole cash Rs 25,000, two mobile phones and personal documents.”

Das added, “We had submitted a protection application to Katwa PS on the previous day. An FIR was also lodged with the help of BCP.” This was done following several online threats and defamatory allegations that were circulated by the earlier mentioned individuals on social media platforms, Das explained.

Moreover, on the same day, they had a meeting with the Inspector in change, Katwa police station, and the sub-divisional police officer, Katwa. As per their instructions, said Das, “The church service cannot be held until further orders. The school/educational activity under the name Grace Mission cannot be run until proper legal documents are submitted. And we have been given 30 days to submit all required legal documents for verification.”

When asked about the recent update, Das said, “I have submitted all the documents related to the established Mission. Officers have visited and inspected the school. We are still waiting for a proper declaration.” “In the meantime, we are currently conducting classes at another location, in collaboration with another school,” Das mentioned.

“The FIR has not yet led to any arrests”, Gayen added.

July 4: Palbari, Paschim Medinipur

In a press statement, the Bangiya Christiya Pariseba said that on July 4, members of Bangiya Hindu Jagran Mancha disrupted a wedding reception and thanksgiving prayer service, physically assaulting attendees (including women), forcibly removing traditional marital symbols (sindoor and bangles), throwing religious books on the road and stamping on them.

Later, police detained the pastor, Rev Anup Ghosh, following conversion accusations, as per the statement reported by Catholic Connect.

The hecklers have also accused the attendees of physically assaulting them in a video uploaded by the Bangiya Hindu Jagran Mancha.

July 1: Haldia, East Midnapore

A video uploaded by a Facebook user on July 1 shows men adorning saffron scarves, identifying themselves as members of the Shree Ram Janmotsav committee, Chaitanyapur branch, heckling and humiliating two women for allegedly preaching Christianity by distributing pamphlets. The men from the group said, “Now, there is a nationalistic government in West Bengal, which will not tolerate preaching Christianity or ‘love jihad’ to safeguard Sanatanis”.

Recurring patterns

Across the incidents tracked by Alt News, several recurring patterns emerged: shouting of the sloban “Jai Sri Ram”, the claims by the attackers that there is a “new Bengal” under BJP rule where Christianity would not be tolerated, that Christianity was not in Indian culture, that every small private church was indulging in forced conversions, and that it was unacceptable for women to wear bangles and vermillion like some Hindu married women did, and then practise Christianity.

In some cases, the attackers also claimed that at several prayer meets, attendees said they had turned to Christianity or prayed to Jesus after experiencing relief from health issues.

When Alt News asked pastors, evangelists and Bangiya Christiya Pariseba founder Herold Mullick about the miraculous healing claims, they attributed such experiences to faith, saying that collective prayer and a person’s belief in recovery could contribute to the recovery of an unwell person.

“We, on behalf of the church,” said Mullick, “believe in a healing ministry. But it is not that a person is healed simply because of prayer. The person who comes to us develops a sense of faith.”

“Having said that, we do not support inviting people for practices such as jolpora or telpora,” he said, referring to traditional water-based and oil-based remedies/ritual treatments, often associated with folk healing or spiritual practices in Bengal.

“If I invite people solely by promising healing, that too becomes a form of inducement, and we condemn it,” Mullick clarified. “It is acceptable to say, ‘Come and pray to the Lord, have faith and you may get better.’ But saying, ‘Come to me and I will cure you’ is not right.”

About women wearing markers of Hinduism like vermillion, evangelist Geeta Haldar said, “Christianity does not restrict a person from expressing themselves or practising cultural traditions. A Christian couple may choose to apply sindoor during their wedding.”

Mullick attributed misconceptions about Christianity to its portrayal in popular media, particularly films. “What we see in movies and similar fictional representations is a Westernised idea of Christianity. We are Bengalis, and because of our culture and traditions, Bengali Christians wear bangles (sakha-pawla) and apply sindoor. It is quite common. The claim that Christians cannot wear these is false. These are part of our culture and tradition. There may be one or two sects that do not permit this, but their numbers are few and they do not represent Christianity as a whole.”

This article first appeared on Alt News.

The Bihar Police on Friday registered a first information report against a staffer at the chief minister’s office for posting the photos of a minor girl who was molested by a group of men in Jamui district last week, on Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary’s official account, The Hindu reported.

The girl and her family had met Choudhary at his official residence in Patna on Thursday. A post about the meeting had been put up on Chaudhary’s account on social media platform X, along with an unblurred photo of the girl and her family members.

The photo had been deleted within 15 minutes of being posted.

The police alleged that Sagar Prasad, a stenographer in the chief minister’s office had uploaded the photo on the social media platform, The Hindu reported.

“The viral nature of the post has compromised the privacy and dignity of the minor victim and her family, creating a situation where the victim’s identity is at risk of exposure,” the police was quoted as having stated.

The police also named other persons and social media accounts in the case for allegedly forwarding or sharing the post. The police have also filed a case against a social media user for uploading videos purportedly generated by artificial intelligence of the girl.

Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav had accused Choudhary of revealing the identity of the teen, saying that it violated the 2012 Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

An FIR has been registered at the Secretariat Police Station against an employee of the Chief Minister's Office regarding the posting of a photograph of the Jamui victim's family on Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary's social media handle ('X') yesterday. pic.twitter.com/PZ9VW6tt0U

— ANI (@ANI) September 25, 2026

The harassment case

A minor girl was sexually harassed and her male friend was assaulted by a group of men in Jamui district on September 19. Videos of the incident were widely shared on social media.

One video shows the boy riding a two-wheeler with the girl seated behind him. A group of men can be seen surrounding them on a dimly lit road and asking whether they were classmates and whether their families knew about their relationship.

The boy says they were classmates, while the girl pleads with the men to let them go. One of the men slaps the boy and asks the two to call their families. “If they know, then call them,” the man can be heard saying.

In other videos, several men are seen chasing the two minors. One man appears to grab and lift the girl, while the boy tries to pull her away. Another man is seen pulling the boy by his collar.

The police registered a case on Monday under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. A special investigation team was formed to investigate the incident.

Six persons have been arrested in the case so far.

On Tuesday, an additional case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act against those involved in sharing videos of the two minors.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Election Commission on Saturday said that the old version of Form 6, used to register new voters, will be used in periods when the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is not underway.

The poll panel also said that persons who have been served a notice as part of the SIR for being “unmapped” or in connection with “logical discrepancies” do not need to mandatorily attend a hearing before the electoral registration officer. The booth-level officers will collect documents from their homes, it added.

In a statement, the Election Commission said that the declaration attached to Form 6 for the voter roll revision exercise had been upheld by the Supreme Court. “For non-SIR period, the forms applicable as per Rules (the Registration of Electors Rules 1960) will be used,” it added.

The decision was made at a meeting of the three election commissioners on Saturday, the first after The Indian Express reported on Wednesday that two of them, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to the poll panel’s decisions about the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The Opposition and civil society groups have been demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over revelations in the newspaper report.

One of the objections raised by Sandhu and Joshi pertained to the changes to Form 6.

The new form asked applicants to state whether they or their parents or grandparents were part of the last special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Although the new declaration is not marked as mandatory, applicants cannot submit the online form without filling it.

Joshi and Sandhu had objected to the change, saying that it could not be made without amending the rules. Section 28 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act says that only the Union government can amend the rules governing electoral forms, including Form 6.

Poll panel to review IT system

The Election Commission also said on Saturday that field officers have “role-based access” to the ECINET system.

A committee headed by a senior deputy election commissioner and including an independent expert from an Indian Institute of Technology or International Institute of Information Technology “will review the ECINET to double-check that it complies with the provisions of the Acts and rules”, the poll panel said.

“…In case, any further flexibility is required by the field officers, that will be made operational,” it said.

All new processes relating to information technology modules and portals will be discussed in the committee of officers before they are approved by the Election Commission, the statement added.

This came after the two election commissioners also reportedly raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Each constituency’s electoral roll is maintained by its electoral registration officer, a statutory authority. But Joshi and Sandhu questioned whether these officers were being given access to the database, The Indian Express had reported.

In May, Joshi flagged that there was a “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database” and proposed an audit to certify that “no one, except the concerned statutory authorities, has credentials to make any change in the database”.

The newspaper also reported that Joshi and Sandhu had written separately to the Cabinet secretary objecting to changes in the allocation of work that reduced supervision of the digital systems used for electoral rolls.

In its statement on Saturday, the Election Commission claimed that the letter to the Cabinet secretary “was not related to any policy matter of the Commission or IT division but related to working of an officer on deputation” to the poll panel.

“The work redistribution orders issued by the concerned officer were not actually implemented after the orders of the two commissioners and the oversight over the IT division by the DEC [deputy election commissioner] was never actually withdrawn,” the statement added.

A meeting of the Election Commission of India was held today, 26 September 2026, at 3:00 PM at Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi.

Chief Election Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi were present in today’s meeting.… pic.twitter.com/WZoqEIXVJq

— Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) September 26, 2026

New SIR decisions

The poll panel also said that booth-level officers will visit homes and collect documents of persons who have been issued a notice as part of the SIR, for being “unmapped” or in connection with “logical discrepancies”.

“Unmapped” refers to persons who have been unable to show that they or their parents are present on the 2002 voter lists, when the exercise was last held.

Logical discrepancies refer to what the panel considers inconsistencies such as a mismatch with the spellings of names of the voters’ parents, an unreasonably low gap between the ages of parents and children or if parents have more than six children.

The booth-level officer will upload the documents on the ECINET platform for a decision by the electoral registration officer, the poll panel said.

Persons who have been served a notice “need not be called for hearing” by the electoral registration officer, it stated.

“Only in exceptional circumstances, as decided by the ERO, the hearing will be held preferably online,” it said, adding that any adult member of the family can be authorised by the elector to attend the hearing on their behalf.

The Election Commission also extended the period for filing claims and objections against deletions in Delhi till October 30. The period of disposal of notices and the claims and objections was extended till November 30.

In Maharashtra, the period for filing claims and objections was extended till October 12. The period of disposal of notices and the claims and objections was extended till November 10.

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the exercise, but said that it does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said that Kumar should resign from his post and “turn approver”. The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign said that it will launch a nationwide protest on October 2 if Kumar does not resign by Saturday.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission had said on Wednesday that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

A group of former bureaucrats on Saturday called on the Election Commission to scrap the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

In an open letter, the Constitutional Conduct Group said that the nationwide voter roll revision exercise “needs to be scrapped lest it undermine our commitment to universal adult suffrage, seriously damage the reputation” of the poll panel and “make a mockery of our democracy”.

The letter came amid demands by the Opposition and civil society groups for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the conduct of polls after The Indian Express on Wednesday reported that two election commissioners had objected to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The newspaper’s investigation revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to the poll panel’s decisions about the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Process ‘transgressive’, say former bureaucrats

On Saturday, the group of former bureaucrats said that several instances of “bulk deletions, absurd additions, sloppy documentation, partisan instructions and unreasonable harassment to citizens” had come to light.

The exercise has placed the burden of proof of citizenship on the voters, and is “transgressive and without any constitutional justification”, they said.

The retired bureaucrats also said that the Election Commission was yet to inform the public “whether the decision to undertake the SIR was taken by it on its own, or at the behest of the government”.

The group said that in order to discharge its constitutional mandate and “protect its historic dignity and reputation for impartiality”, the poll panel should scrap the exercise and revert to the “long-established procedures for registration of electors provided by the rules”.

The 100 signatories to the letter include former West Bengal Election Commissioner Mira Pande, Punjab’s former Director General of Police Julio Ribeiro, Delhi’s former Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, former Indian ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya and former Indian Administrative Service officer and activist Harsh Mander.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the exercise, but said that it does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said that Kumar should resign from his post and “turn approver”.

The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign said that it will launch a nationwide protest on October 2 if Kumar does not resign by Saturday.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission said on Wednesday that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

The Bihar Police has filed a case against a social media user for uploading videos purportedly generated by artificial intelligence of a girl who was molested by a group of men in Jamui district last week, PTI reported on Saturday.

The videos were “misleading and fake”, the news agency quoted a police statement as saying. Sharing the videos resulted in “revealing the identity of the girl and could affect social harmony”, it added.

The case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the Juvenile Justice Act and the Information Technology Act, the police said.

The harassment case

A minor girl was sexually harassed and her male friend was assaulted by a group of men in Jamui district on September 19. Videos of the incident were widely shared on social media.

One video shows the boy riding a two-wheeler with the girl seated behind him. A group of men can be seen surrounding them on a dimly lit road and asking whether they were classmates and whether their families knew about their relationship.

The boy says they were classmates, while the girl pleads with the men to let them go. One of the men slaps the boy and asks the two to call their families. “If they know, then call them,” the man can be heard saying.

In other videos, several men are seen chasing the two minors. One man appears to grab and lift the girl, while the boy tries to pull her away. Another man is seen pulling the boy by his collar.

The police registered a case on Monday under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. A special investigation team was formed to investigate the incident.

Six persons have been arrested in the case so far.

On Tuesday, an additional case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act against those involved in sharing videos of the two minors.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Maharashtra government on Saturday declared drought conditions in 75% of the state’s subdistricts amid a deficit in rainfall during the southwest monsoon season.

The government order facilitates the assessment of crop damage and enables 12 relief measures including a waiver of land revenue, restructuring of crop loans, a stay on the recovery of farm loans, concession on electricity bills of agricultural pumps, and making available tankers to supply drinking water.

The order covers 265 of the state’s 358 talukas where a “trigger-1” criterion has been met. The 2026 Drought Management Code defines trigger-1 as a dry spell of at least 21 consecutive days during the monsoon.

The affected talukas are spread across 32 of the state’s 34 districts including Ahilyanagar, Amravati, Beed, Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Jalgaon, Latur, Nagpur, Nanded, Nandurbar, Parbhani, Pune, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Sindhudurg, Solapur, Wardha and Yavatmal.

The southwest monsoon is expected to begin its withdrawal from Maharashtra by October 5 with a 17% rainfall deficit, The Indian Express reported. The average deficit at the national level is 15%.

Between June 1 and September 22, Maharashtra recorded an average 787.2 mm of rainfall against the usual average of 953.2 mm during the period. In Solapur district, the rainfall was 57% below normal, The Indian Express reported. In Ahilyanagar, the deficit was 42%, followed by 34% in Nadurbar and 24% in Sangli.

The India Meteorological Department has said that strong El Niño conditions are prevailing over the equatorial Pacific Ocean, with sea surface temperature remaining above-normal in central and eastern equatorial Pacific.

The El Niño weather phenomenon involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to reduced monsoon rainfall in India.

The conditions are expected to strengthen further in the coming months, the weather department had said on August 31.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• How a ‘super El Niño’ could make India’s monsoon drier – yet more dangerous
• Has El Niño’s monsoon effect hit India’s kharif crops?

Union Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that attacks on seafarers and commercial ships were “regrettably” no longer exceptional occurrences and the loss of lives was “indefensible”, PTI reported.

His remarks came two days after an Indian seafarer was killed in an attack on a commercial ship off the coast of Oman. It was the 11th death of an Indian ship crew member in the Strait of Hormuz since the war in West Asia began.

The external affairs minister’s remarks also came on the day India and Liberia announced the establishment of a “group of friends” on the safety and security of shipping and seafarers on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly.

“In the last few months, commercial shipping and mariners have been subjected to repeated attacks in the Gulf, the Red Sea and its vicinity,” PTI quoted Jaishankar as saying. “These actions that disrupt maritime commerce and cost innocent lives are simply indefensible.”

He added: “India, as a major source of seafarers, and Liberia, as the largest shipping registry, have come together to highlight the safety and security of shipping and seafarers.”

West Asia war

The war in West Asia began when the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, targeting major cities in Gulf countries and ships.

On June 15, the US and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels. However, diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled since then.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed Meta to remove within 24 hours purportedly objectionable deepfake content depicting a woman with Prime Minister Narendra Modi which was shared during the youth protests in July, Bar and Bench reported.

The court noted that the matter was not just about “one lady” but also involved the prime minister.

The woman has alleged that during the youth demonstrations, protest organisers had used an artificial intelligence face-swapping tool to superimpose her face on a vulgar image alongside Modi. She said that the image was printed on banners, displayed during the protest at Jantar Mantar and shared online.

The court issued notices to Cockroach Janta Party leaders named in her petition on allegations that they were involved in sharing the image.

The court also directed the Delhi Police to provide protection to the woman, who submitted that she had been receiving threats to her life.

Her counsel informed the court that a first information report had already been registered in connection with the allegations. However, no steps had been taken either to apprehend those responsible or to secure removal and blocking of the allegedly defamatory content, the counsel submitted.

The bench said that if the Delhi Police “are not sensitive about it this court will ensure that it becomes sensitive”, The Hindu reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

This came after an investigation by The Indian Express showed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

On Friday, Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan said the chief election commissioner was responsible for presenting his stance if questions were raised about the poll panel, The Indian Express reported.

“It is problematic if people begin to doubt the electoral process itself,” the newspaper quoted Paswan as saying. The EC…must dispel misgivings in the minds of people.”

Telugu Desam Party Lok Sabha floor leader Lavu Srikrishna Devarayalu said the SIR had been “conducted in a transparent manner” in Andhra Pradesh, but added that the Election Commission should provide clarifications whenever questions are raised about its functioning, the newspaper reported.

He added: “Providing appropriate clarification and maintaining transparency will only help strengthen public confidence in the institution.”

Rashtriya Lok Morcha chief and Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha told The Indian Express, “What has transpired so far is that there is surely an issue with the EC’s functioning.”

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission said on Wednesday that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The newspaper’s investigation has led to protests by Opposition parties and students. On Friday, several leaders of a student-led protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar seeking Kumar’s arrest were detained by the police. Congress leaders also held a protest against Kumar outside the Election Commission’s office in Delhi.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR

• Why didn’t the Supreme Court stop the SIR?

• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

On September 18, 2026, Sahil Wakode, a BTech student from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay died by suicide. Wakode’s parents have alleged that their son faced casteist harassment from a professor on campus.

Students mounted protests after the suicide and submitted an 18-point memorandum to the institution, demanding a fair investigation and better support systems for students.

After three days of protests, media outlets reported that the institute’s director signed the memorandum, indicating that the demands would be considered. On September 24, the institute announced that a ten-member committee would investigate the incident.

The previous month, IIT Delhi had also seen protests after the death by suicide of a student, named Rishikesh Kumar. The institution’s students demanded that an external inquiry committee be formed, and that the student’s family be compensated, and also called for broader policy changes.

The students paused their protests after six days, after the institution formed the committee – Kumar’s parents declined compensation.

Many students told Scroll that the protesting IIT students had been inspired by the protest launched by the Cockroach Janata Party in July. “There are student protests happening all over the country so, even we felt emboldened to raise our issues,” said one student from IIT Bombay. “For the first time, we are seeing that protests can actually be impactful and I think students also feel like they can make demands for a better life.” All those who spoke to Scroll requested anonymity because they feared retribution from their institutions.

Nevertheless, the intensity of the protests was striking, given that the IITs have not typically been known as sites of student politics.

A key reason for this is institutional opposition to such activities. In 2023, IIT Bombay explicitly stated in its rules and regulations that all protests, including marches, and gathering on campuses “require prior permission from the institute and the local police”.

The institution also warned students against speaking to “the press, media persons, or any external agencies on any matters related to the Institute without prior approval from authorized Institute officials”. The rules also state that students cannot “post, share, or disseminate any false information related to the Institute on social media platforms” and that “unauthorized sharing of confidential or sensitive Institute matters on social media is strictly prohibited”.

The institution enforced these rules in 2025, and suspended a student for allegedly making “unauthorised comments” to the media. He was reinstated after approaching a court, which ruled in his favour. The professor who headed the disciplinary committee that decided on the suspension is the same one named in the recent incident.

IITs have also restricted political activities in specific circumstances. Earlier this year, during the Cockroach Janata Party protests, for instance, IIT Rourkee asked students and faculty to refrain from political activity without seeking the institution’s permission.

Similarly, in 2020, as protests against the Constitutional Amendment Act played out, the IIT Bombay director told students to keep politics off campus. In 2018, IIT Kharagpur issued a circular banning students from “political/apolitical gathering/meeting” ahead of a planned march in support of students from Aligarh Muslim University who had been assaulted by police.

In another, earlier instance, from 2015, IIT Madras derecognised the student group Ambedkar Periyar Reading Circle – it withdrew its decision a week later, after strong protests from students across the country.

Unsurprisingly, then, student political groups like the left-leaning Student Federation of India or the right-leaning Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad have not established a presence in the IITs. In fact, IIT Madras’s rules explicitly state that students are allowed “to form associations and student organizations as long as they are not affiliated to external political parties”, or groups that “promote hatred”.

But faculty and students noted that in the absence of forums in which to speak up, frustrations over several problems have been building up in recent years. These include inadequate infrastructure, social isolation and uncertain job prospects.

One faculty member observed that securing a seat at an IIT is an immensely difficult task, and that most students spend several years and several lakhs of rupees at coaching centres to be able to crack the entrance exams. “After all that, they come to the institutions to find out that there are even more struggles here,” they said. “The institutions don’t match up to the students’ expectations.”

Causes of unrest

The IIT Madras student noted that student suicides become “flashpoints” for unrest, and that in such situations, administrations “really cannot stop the student from protesting”.

According to data compiled by Dheeraj Singh, founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support group and an alumnus of IIT Kanpur, in the last 10 years, 120 students have died of suicides or unnatural causes, while the the previous decade saw 51 such deaths. The data also showed that Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students died by suicide at roughly two times higher rates than general category students.

Since 2023, a total of eight students have died by suicide in IIT Delhi, and this year alone, three have died by suicide at IIT Bombay.

One alumnus of an IIT observed that students were frustrated with the absence of measures to tackle this problem. “Every time such a suicide happens, the administration will form such committees, show some interest in the matter and then ten days later everything goes back to normal,” they said. “We see the same thing happen every single time there is a suicide, nobody seems to be taking any concrete steps.”

The first faculty member noted that the deeper infrastructural problems that students have been frustrated about include a lack of space. In IIT Delhi, for instance, they noted, there were simply not enough classrooms to accommodate students, and hostel rooms were inadequate as well. “Students are crammed into hostel rooms, there have been issues regarding drinking water and hygiene too,” they said.

A key reason for this is that while student numbers have increased dramatically over recent years, the institutions have not been allocated sufficient additional resources. “Infrastructure has not evolved with time,” one student from IIT Delhi said. Further, the first faculty member noted that they were struggling to teach the expanded classes.

Faculty and students’ impression of IITs diminishing reputation is also reflected in their concerns over placements. While once IITs would boast of students bagging huge salary packages, the alumnus said, “That doesn’t happen any more. Students still get, but they are few.”

The first faculty member also said that students were finding it difficult to land “high salaried jobs”. According to data submitted by the Centre to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports in 2025, in 22 out of 23 IITs, placements had fallen significantly in the three years between 2021-’22 and 2023-’24. While some attribute this fall to a normalisation after a spike in hiring after the Covid-19 pandemic, recent media reports indicate that securing jobs did, indeed, remain a challenge.

“The image of IITs being this prestigious institute that guarantees a secure future is being shattered,” the alumnus said. “In the last few years, the institution is not releasing placement data.”

At the same time, the fees at the institutions have also seen significant hikes in recent years. In 2022, students of IIT Bombay held a month-long protest against a fee hike of 39% for MTech students and 45% for PhD students. The institution partially rolled back the fees after the protests.

“Students are forced to take loans to pay their fees and after that if they are graduating with loans and not a good job, then that causes a lot of stress,” the first faculty member said. “Both to the student and the parents.”

Campus environment

Students also decried what they said was an increasingly restrictive environment on IIT campuses. “There is such high security everywhere. There’s a running joke that entering our campus is like going to the airport,” another IIT Bombay student said. “We see people in uniforms all over campus.”

She added, “There are also several places on campus that are now forbidden, there are so many rules regarding every single thing. It has become suffocating. All of these reasons combined is what is causing so much frustration among students.”

The IIT Madras student explained that though their campus had a wide range of clubs, students could not have free conversations within them. “The administration assigns a professor to each of these clubs, and I think this is because they want to keep an eye on what we are up to,” he said. “So, students feel like they are being watched and there is no space to discuss issues.”

The IIT Bombay student also argued that the attitude of many faculty members was outdated. They see the teacher-student relationship as “purely transactional”, she said, an approach that had “reached its limit and is now crashing and burning”.

The first faculty member noted that the challenges students face are particularly acute for those from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class communities – these students often have to take loans to enroll in the institutions, and once they arrive on campuses, find themselves isolated from other students. “Even general category students find it hard to feel a sense of belonging, so obviously it is worse for students from marginalised backgrounds,” they said. “It is very difficult for them to navigate these spaces.”

That marginalised students find themselves in an oppressive environment was apparent from the tenor of some public conversations that followed Wokade’s death – for instance, rather than consider the allegation of casteist harassment that his family had raised, some social media users scrutinised CCTV footage of the exam to determine whether or not he had cheated in the exam.

The second faculty member also noted that the professor in question received a groundswell of support from faculty from IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras and other IITs after the family raised the matter of caste. “After the family invoked the SC/ST atrocity act, immediately everyone came to the defence of the professor,” the faculty member pointed out. “Until then everyone was protesting.”

Further, some argued that support systems on the campuses for distressed students were inadequate. “Students don’t find the counselors to be good and prefer to get a reference from the campus hospital to go see therapists outside the campus,” the second IIT Bombay student said.

This difficulty is compounded by the intense competition within the institutions, and a view that prevails among many students who perform poorly or do not graduate simply could not cope with the pressure. “By design, life in an IIT is isolating, even spaces within the campus are designed in a way to prevent proper socialisation among students,” the student said. “Everybody on the outside thinks that life in IIT is perfect but it really isn’t.”

Increased politicisation?

Are the recent agitations then an indication of a shift on IIT campuses, and of an increasing politicisation of the institutions’ students?

Conversations with students and faculty members from four IITs suggest that this is not the case. The first student from IIT Bombay said that she had observed that the initiative to start a protest was taken by students with “some political leanings” but that as the protests grew, so did demands to ensure they remained apolitical. “There have been protests and marches in the past as well,” she said. “Students will come together for some issues, but even in this one, they said they don’t want it to get political. Even though all things are political.”

A student of IIT Madras said he felt that “‘politics’ is kind of a bad word” in the institutions. “But I feel that there is a kind of awareness that is also emerging among the students,” he said. “Probably because the peer groups are also changing, thanks to diverse students from different backgrounds and socio-economic background students who are coming into the campuses.”

Many protesting students, however, worried that unrest would damage the institution’s name, the IIT Bombay student observed. “They may voice out issues but they don’t want the issues to get out and for the institution’s reputation to be affected,” she said. “They don’t see themselves as separate from the institution and so don’t want the institution to be criticised.”

In fact, one professor from an IIT said that in the protests in Mumbai, they had observed some students raising slogans against party-affiliated student groups like the Students Federation of India. “They want their protests to be ‘pure’, they seem to view student politics that happen in other campuses as ‘dirty’,” the professor said. “And they seem to not want these protests to be tainted by that kind of politics.”

Opposition leaders and legal observers have raised questions about alleged judicial impropriety by Supreme Court Justice Satish Chandra Sharma for hearing petitions regarding the constitutionality of a 2023 law that governs the appointment of members of the Election Commission, despite his son being the standing advocate for the poll panel in Madhya Pradesh.

It was not clear if the judge had disclosed this information to the petitioners against the 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office Act before the hearing, Live Law reported on Friday.

On Wednesday, he had disagreed with Justice Dipankar Datta, who was part of the bench hearing the six petitions against the Act, when the latter held that the law “does not appear to ensure an independent selection process”.

The Act states that the head of the poll panel and the two other top members are to be appointed based on the recommendations of a selection committee comprising the prime minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The composition of the panel means that the government enjoys a 2:1 majority over the leader of the Opposition, if there is a difference of opinion.

Sharma on Wednesday also headed a bench that overturned an Allahabad High Court order directing Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam to pay Rs 5 lakh in compensation from her salary to 25-year-old Delhi University graduate Akriti Chaudhary, who had been detained under the National Security Act after the workers’ protest in Noida.

Roopam is the daughter of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The matter was listed before Sharma’s bench, despite it not being assigned to handle preventive detention cases according to the Supreme Court roster, reported Live Law.

According to the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s website, Sharma’s son is the standing counsel for the Election Commission since 2024. He is also the standing counsel for the Central Board of Direct Taxes and the Income Tax Department since 2023.

Pointing this out, Saurav Das, a convenor of the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, asked how a judge can be expected to deliver “impartial and fair” justice in politically sensitive cases when his family members “serve at the pleasure of the government”.

Das is also a legal journalist.

🚨IMPORTANT NEWS🚨

Since Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is in the news, I have some very important but sad news to share about a Supreme Court judge.

Supreme Court judge Justice Satish Chandra Sharma. Just two months away from retirement.

If you remember, the… pic.twitter.com/h6YRgYs14F

— Saurav Das (@SauravDassss) September 24, 2026

“...his son holds not one, not two, but four big, plum government counsel panels, including income tax department, GST [Goods and Services Tax], customs, and excise, and a Madhya Pradesh government lawyer panel,” Das wrote on X.

Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra alleged that it was due to Sharma’s son being the poll panel’s counsel that he had disagreed with Datta on the matter of the 2023 Act. “Judiciary is protector – cannot be predator.”

Hon’ble Chief Justice of India - Siddharth Sharma, son of Justice Sharma practices in Jabalpur, is empanelled by @ECISVEEP, has appeared for them. How can his father hear Gyanesh Kumar CEC’s case? How can he be put out of turn to give relief to CEC daughter? pic.twitter.com/gXRyfqm5aE

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) September 25, 2026

Edited by Sneha.

Screenings of a documentary on jailed activist Umar Khalid, scheduled for Saturday in Pune and Nashik, were cancelled after the police allegedly told the organisers that such events would be “illegal” as the censor board had yet to certify the film.

Khalid has been in judicial custody for six years in connection with the conspiracy case related to the 2020 Delhi riots. The trial in the case is yet to begin.

On Sunday, the Law and Society Committee at the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru told The Hindu that it had cancelled the screening of the documentary, Prisoner No: 626710 is Present, as it had not been cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification.

This came two days after the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, cancelled a screening of the same documentary following an objection from the censor board.

Additionally, two Mumbai residents have alleged that a private screening they had organised on September 19 was cancelled after police intimidated the managers of two venues they had approached to host the event.

The film certification body had said on social media that public screening of a documentary that had not been certified by it “is a violation” of the 1952 Cinematograph Act “unless a specific exemption has been sought under the act”.

Screening cancelled in Pune

The Working Title Film Club and Satyashodhak Vidyarthi Sanghatna had planned to screen the documentary at 6 pm on Saturday. However, the Pune Police told the organisers on Thursday that they and the audience “would face consequences” if the screening was held, a member of the film club who did not wish to be identified told Scroll.

“When our lawyer asked under what sections we would be booked under, the police did not have any clear answers,” the member added.

More than 100 participants, including members of several film clubs in the city, were expected to attend the screening. It had been organised to mark six years of Khalid’s incarceration on September 13.

On Friday, the Working Title Film Club and Satyashodhak Vidyarthi Sanghatna stated it was a “tragic contradiction” that a documentary on the alleged use of legal mechanisms to suppress dissent was being silenced.

“The state is so petty,” said the film club member. He pointed out that the one-hour-long film has been screened at several places around the world.

Police pressure in Nashik

In Nashik, the Indian People’s Theatre Association stated that on Thursday its members received a phone call from the police, saying that “screening a film without a censor certificate would constitute a non-bailable offence”.

“We have also learnt that the ABVP [Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad] has submitted a representation to the mayor of Nashik opposing the screening,” said the association’s president Mukta Kawale. “We strongly condemn this attempt at suppression.”

The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

On Thursday evening, Nashik Mayor Himgauri Aher Adke said on social media that members of the ABVP had met her and submitted a memorandum opposing the screening of a documentary “glorifying” Umar Khalid. She said she had ordered the administration to prevent the documentary from being screened.

The association said that the “attempt to prevent a film from being screened and discussed in solidarity with Umar Khalid raises serious concerns about the space available for dissent and public dialogue”.

Talha Shaikh, a member of the association, told Scroll on Friday that they will hold an event on democracy and freedom in place of the film screening. He added that the association had been receiving messages from BJP members opposing the screening of the documentary. Police personnel also visited the venue asking about the contact details of the organisers.

On Thursday, members of the association met the police at the venue and explained that the event was a private screening and “those who are attending are doing so willingly”.

The police, however, said that screening a documentary that had not been cleared by the censor board would lead to law and order problems, Shaikh told Scroll.

He added that the officers told the organisers that a “private screening” would entail watching the documentary at home, whereas the association had publicised the event on social media and kept the entry free.

After the organisers announced the cancellation, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Ajit Chavan, in an Instagram video, said the screening of a documentary “glorifying Umar Khalid, a person with an anti-national mindset” and accused of sedition will not be allowed in Nashik.

Case against Khalid

Khalid, activist Sharjeel Imam and several other activists were arrested between January 2020 and September 2020 in connection with the communal violence that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

Those accused in the matter have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame the Narendra Modi government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act.

With inputs from Divya Aslesha. Edited by Sneha.

Several leaders of a student-led protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding the arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar were detained by the police on Friday. They alleged irregularities in the conduct of elections after The Indian Express on Wednesday reported that two election commissioners had objected to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

Among those detained were All India Students’ Association chief Neha Bora, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, and activists Yogendra Yadav and Anjali Bharadwaj.

The Delhi Police had denied permission for the protest and “brutally detained” the leaders, said the All India Students’ Association.

The protest was held after an investigation by The Indian Express revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

After the detentions on Friday, the All India Students’ Association said that it condemns the “suppression of peaceful protest” and demanded the immediate release of all persons.

“Denying students the right to protest cannot silence questions concerning democracy, electoral rights and the functioning of the Election Commission,” said the students’ association.

It added that the poll panel had “completely lost the trust among the people” and Kumar “must be held accountable for ignoring all the dissent notes” by the other two election commissioners and “completely corrupting the election process”.

The Delhi Police denied permission for the protest and detained General Secretary CPI-ML(L) Dipankar Bhattacharya and Yogendra Yadav, among other protesting students and activists demanding the arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and accountability over serious… pic.twitter.com/Lyerg4LLcO

— Scroll.in (@scroll_in) September 25, 2026

Separately, Congress leaders held a protest against Kumar outside the Election Commission’s office in Delhi.

The Cockroach Janta Party on Friday said that it will launch a nationwide protest on October 2 if Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar does not resign by Saturday.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The Opposition has also demanded the removal of Kumar.

On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said that Kumar should resign from his post and “turn approver”.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission said on Wednesday that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

In April, the energy crisis triggered by the conflict in West Asia ate into the meagre incomes of working-class Indians, precipitating a cost-of-living crisis for many of them. Thousands of workers hit the streets in Noida, an industrial city in the National Capital Region, to demand an increase in their minimum wage, which had not been revised since 2014.

The government of Uttar Pradesh responded by detaining hundreds of protesters, some of whom have spent months in jail.

This is the story of three such women – a factory worker who doubled up as an activist, a domestic worker who was inspired by the workers to demand better working conditions for herself, and an artist who joined the protests in solidarity.

Two out of these three women remain behind bars because the police have filed nearly a dozen cases against them for allegedly inciting violence during the agitation. Scroll made several visits to Noida to piece together this account of their lives.

Several leaders of a student-led protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding the arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar were detained by the police. They alleged irregularities in the conduct of elections after The Indian Express on Wednesday reported that two election commissioners had objected to the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls.

Among those detained were All India Students’ Association chief Neha Bora, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and activists Yogendra Yadav and Anjali Bharadwaj.

The Delhi Police had denied permission for the protest and “brutally detained” the leaders, said the All India Students’ Association. Read on.

Four women wrestlers have moved a Delhi court against the acquittal of former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in a sexual harassment case. They have contended that the August 3 order applied the “ideal victim standard” to the wrestlers who had accused the former Bharatiya Janata Party MP of sexual harassment and intimidation.

They added that the order was based on “archaic and stereotypical assumptions” about the “expected” behaviour of victims of sexual assault and harassment. It also lacked a “fair, evidence-based assessment” that took into account the circumstances of the victims, said the wrestlers. Read on.

Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs in Jammu and Kashmir protested against a reference to a 2000 autonomy resolution made in a fresh one moved by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah seeking statehood for the Union Territory. They entered the well of the House and tore up copies of the resolution.

The text of the fresh resolution says that in addition to the resolutions passed by the Assembly in June 2000 and November 2024, the House was calling on the Union government to urgently restore Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood.

In June 2000, the National Conference government led by Farooq Abdullah had called for the restoration of autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir as it enjoyed before August 1953. In November 2024, the Assembly passed another resolution calling for the restoration of the special status the erstwhile state had under Article 370 of the Constitution. Read on.

The Supreme Court sought the Goa government’s response to an appeal by journalist Tarun Tejpal against the Bombay High Court convicting him of raping and sexually harassing a junior colleague in 2013. The bench also issued notice to Tejpal on the state’s plea seeking to increase his 10-year prison sentence to life imprisonment.

His advocate Kapil Sibal urged the court to fix a date for hearing Tejpal’s bail petition. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Goa government, seeking its response to an appeal by journalist Tarun Tejpal against the Bombay High Court convicting him of raping and sexually harassing a junior colleague in 2013, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and PB Varale also issued notice to Tejpal on the state’s plea seeking to increase his 10-year prison sentence to life imprisonment.

Overturning a 2021 sessions court verdict that had acquitted Tejpal, the Bombay High Court on August 6 convicted the journalist under provisions of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to rape by a person holding trust or authority, rape by a person who is in a position of control or dominance over a woman, sexual harassment and criminal force against a woman with an intent to disrobe her.

On August 20, the former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine moved the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court’s decision.

A bench of Justice Alok Aradhe on August 25 directed Tejpal to surrender to the authorities within two weeks. The court agreed to list Tejpal’s appeal, provided he submits his surrender certificate by September 22.

He surrendered before the Additional Sessions Court at Mapusa on September 14, after which he was sent to Central Jail at Colvale in North Goa.

During the hearing on Friday, advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Tejpal, urged the Supreme Court to fix a date for hearing his bail petition, Bar and Bench reported.

Tejpal was accused of raping a junior colleague in an elevator in 2013. He had been arrested in November 2013 and was in jail for seven months before being granted bail by the Supreme Court in July 2014.

A sessions court in Goa’s Mapusa had acquitted him in May 2021.

Additional Sessions Judge Kshama Joshi had said at the time that Tejpal was granted “benefit of doubt” in the absence of corroborative evidence to support the allegations made by the complainant. The judge had also remarked that the complainant did not show the “kind of normative behaviour” expected from her.

During the hearing in the High Court, the Goa government alleged that the trial court’s verdict was prejudiced and contended that it had wrongly focused on the complainant’s character and post-incident behaviour instead of the conduct of the accused.

Edited by Sneha.

More than 10 churches in Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari district have in the past month put up notices outside their premises asking non-Christians to enter at their own risk amid fears of backlash by Hindutva groups, The Indian Express reported on Friday.

“According to rules, only Christians are allowed to enter this church for prayers,” the newspaper quoted a notice outside one of the churches as saying. “If others come of their own free will, they would be held responsible [for their choice].”

The Hindu quoted a notice outside another church as saying: “Worship here is exclusively for Christians; if you are not legally a Christian, you will be held personally responsible.”

Diamond Filus, general secretary of the Dhamtari District Christian Forum, told The Indian Express that the organisation had also asked members of the community to put up the notices outside their homes where persons gather to pray, as a “precautionary measure”.

The advice followed more than 1,000 self-declaration applications being submitted to the district administration by non-Christians stating that they were going to the churches voluntarily, the forum told The Hindu.

The applications had irked certain “right-wing members”, The Indian Express quoted an unidentified community leader as saying.

They were filed after a new law aimed at discouraging religious conversions took effect in the state in August. The law states that any person who wants to convert religion must submit a declaration to the authorities.

While the law does not say anything about a person visiting a church casually, the community leaders do not want to take a risk, the newspaper reported.

Filus was quoted as alleging that since the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state in 2023, Hindutva activists had been “given a free hand”. He alleged that the activists “disrupt the prayer meetings”.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• House churches in Chhattisgarh face an informal ban, say pastors
• How a law to empower Adivasis is being used to target Christians in Chhattisgarh

Four women wrestlers have moved a Delhi court against the acquittal of former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in a sexual harassment case, Live Law reported on Friday.

They have contended that the August 3 order passed by the additional chief judicial magistrate applied the “ideal victim standard” to the wrestlers who had accused the former Bharatiya Janata Party MP of sexual harassment and intimidation, The Indian Express reported.

The wrestlers have also challenged the acquittal of Vinod Tomar, a former assistant secretary of the wrestling federation who was charged with criminal intimidation for threatening one of the complainants.

In his order acquitting them, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Ashwini Panwar of Rouse Avenue Courts had stated that the allegations against Singh were “false and fabricated” and seemed to be “politically motivated”.

Noting that the complaint against Singh was filed long after the alleged sexual harassment, the court had said that the wrestlers’ accusations appeared to be “rehearsed, well-practised and planted”, while also observing that the complainants had maintained “cordial relations” with Singh for years.

The judge had also pointed out that the complainants had maintained “cordial relations” with Singh for years and invited him to family functions.

In their petition, the four wrestlers said that the order was based on “archaic and stereotypical assumptions” about the “expected” behaviour of victims of sexual assault and harassment, and lacked a “fair, evidence-based assessment” that took into account the circumstances of the victims, reported Live Law.

The order is legally unsustainable and based on an incorrect and selective reading of the evidence on record, they further contended.

The matter will be heard by Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh of Rouse Avenue Courts on Saturday.

In January 2023, several Indian wrestlers, including medallists Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat, launched a protest against Singh.

Seven complainants, including a minor, accused the BJP leader of demanding sexual favours for professional help on at least two occasions, and also reported 15 incidents of alleged molestation and other forms of sexual harassment.

The former MP was later cleared with respect to allegations made by one of the women.

In the August 3 order, the judge said that two of the complainants had “categorically admitted” that they were not sexually harassed by Singh.

He further said that even when the complaints were made, some of the wrestlers gave “wrong” details about the country and year in which the alleged incident took place.

“The shift in the first/initial version of the witness with respect to the place/country and the year where the incident allegedly occurred is fatal to the prosecution story,” said the judge.

Edited by Sneha.

A United States Panel on religious freedom on Thursday accused India of “weaponising” the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to detain religious minorities, including activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, who remain jailed in pre-trial detention, for “simply engaging in peaceful protests”.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also urged Washington’s Department of State to work with the Indian authorities to facilitate the release of other “freedom of religion or belief” prisoners.

New Delhi is yet to comment on this statement.

Khalid and Imam have been in judicial custody for six years in connection with the conspiracy case related to the 2020 Delhi riots. The trial in the case is yet to begin.

The US panel defines “freedom of religion or belief” prisoners as individuals who are jailed, detained, or placed in confinement by governments primarily because of their religious faith, peaceful worship, or expression of personal beliefs.

It made the statement after the Delhi High Court on September 18 granted bail to British citizen Jagtar Singh Johal, who is accused of targeted killings linked to a transnational conspiracy allegedly involving the Khalistan Liberation Force, a Khalistan separatist group.

Johal was arrested in 2017 in Punjab, Bar and Bench reported. He is accused in eight cases linked to a series of targeted killings and attempted murders in Punjab’s Ludhiana and Jalandhar districts during 2016-’17. Johal is accused of acting as a financier and courier, the legal news outlet reported.

After he was granted bail, the religious freedom panel said that it welcomed the High Court’s decision and urged Washington to facilitate the release of other such prisoners.

“In 2017, authorities unjustly arrested Johal on false charges of murder and terrorism under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, a law that several United Nations special rapporteurs have characterised as noncompliant with international standards and India’s international obligations,” the panel said.

Vice Chairperson of the panel CeCe Heil said that Johal’s case is “demonstrative of a larger pattern by the Indian government to silence or imprison religious minorities”.

In its 2026 annual report, the religious freedom panel had recommended that the state department designate India as a country of particular concern for engaging in “systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations”.

India has previously said that the commission has a “pattern of issuing biased and politically motivated assessments”.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Twenty-two Border Security Force personnel were deployed at Nehru Park in the national capital’s diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri on Thursday, three days after a 17-year-old girl was gangraped at a park in Southeast Delhi, the Hindustan Times reported.

The Nehru Park area has several embassies and diplomatic missions.

The BSF teams began patrolling the park at 4 pm and were ordered to remain there until 10 pm, the newspaper quoted an unidentified official as saying. Police officers were also patrolling the park.

“This park gets many visitors, especially foreigners,” the official was quoted as saying. “You can always see vehicles of different embassy officials at two parking lots. If anything happens here, it will be all over the news.”

The park has at least 11 entry gates but only five private male security guards and one female guard, the newspaper reported.

The BSF is primarily responsible for guarding India’s borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is also deployed for internal security in anti-terror operations.

The deployment came a day after the Delhi Development Authority restricted entry to its parks after sunset as part of new safety measures.

The measures also included increased security during evening hours and the installation of surveillance cameras at entry gates. The authority officials also said that a safety audit of all its parks would be conducted within a week.

Delhi gangrape

On Monday night, the girl and her 17-year-old male friend were accosted by the three accused persons at Astha Kunj Park near Kalkaji temple. Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern Range) Vijay Kumar said the accused used “legal terminology to intimidate the two telling them that they…had done something wrong and could face a case”.

“The trio then separated the girl by taking her to a secluded spot while restraining the boy and sexually assaulted the girl,” he added.

A first information case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to gang rape of a child, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt and aggravated criminal intimidation. It also invoked sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

All three accused in the case – Asif (31), Hemanth (31) and his brother Mukesh (24) – have been arrested.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

President Droupadi Murmu has returned a West Bengal bill that proposes to allow the preventive detention of “anti-social” persons for up to a year after the Union government raised concerns that some of its provisions could conflict with the 1985 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, The Indian Express reported on Friday.

In its note while returning the draft legislation, the Union government said that the the bill’s definition of “goonda”, which includes a person who commits, attempts to commit, abets, promotes, finances or facilitates offences punishable under the 1985 Act, may overlap with the preventive detention framework provided under the central 1988 Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

The proposed legislation may create a parallel preventive-detention mechanism in cases of drug-related activities and may lead to inconsistencies between the laws at the state and the central levels, the Union government said.

It recommended that the reference to offences under the 1985 Act be deleted from the bill to avoid duplication.

The West Bengal Assembly had passed the Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill on June 30. It was sent to the president for assent after the governor reserved it.

The proposed legislation would allow the state government to order the preventive detention of a person for up to one year if they are “generally reputed to be desperate and dangerous to the community”.

Every detention case would be reviewed within three weeks by an advisory board headed by a serving or former High Court judge, which would decide whether the detainee should remain in custody or be released.

The detention orders could be issued by a district magistrate, a police commissioner or a state-authorised police officer of at least the rank of deputy inspector general.

The legislation would also expand the definition of “anti-social” activities to include organised extortion, obstruction of business and other acts that create fear or insecurity among the public.

Under the proposed legislation, the police would be able to conduct raids, seize property and make arrests in cognisable and non-bailable offences. It would also make it an offence to harbour or assist persons against whom detention or externment orders have been issued.

Several Opposition MLAs had raised concerns that the legislation could be used to curb peaceful protests and student movements.

After facing criticism from the Opposition, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had said that the legislation would not be used for political vendetta, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Cockroach Janta Party on Friday said that it will launch a nationwide protest on October 2 if Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar does not resign by Saturday.

The campaign’s founder Abhijeet Dipke said that the agitation would begin in Mumbai and be taken to other cities. “This Gandhi Jayanti, let’s pledge to save democracy,” he added.

This followed the Cockroach Janta Party’s announcement on Thursday that it would launch the agitation if Kumar does not resign within 48 hours.

The campaign is also demanding criminal proceedings against Kumar after an investigation by The Indian Express on Wednesday revealed that two election commissioners had objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions about the poll panel’s special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The newspaper reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The Opposition has also demanded the removal of Kumar.

On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said that Kumar should resign from his post and “turn approver”.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission said on Wednesday that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

The Bharatiya Janata Party spent Rs 286.9 crore on the West Bengal election, more than the Rs 248.5 crore the Congress spent in all five Assembly polls held this year, the parties’ expenditure statements filed with the Election Commission showed.

In 2026, Assembly elections were held in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry.

The BJP spent Rs 529.3 crore on the Assembly polls in four states and one Union Territory.

The Hindutva party’s expenditure in West Bengal was more than half of its total spending in all five elections, the data showed.

The BJP won 207 seats in the 294-member Assembly, ending the 15-year rule of the Trinamool Congress.

The expenditure filings made by the Trinamool Congress have not been made public yet.

The Congress spent Rs 42 crore in West Bengal. The party had won two seats in the state.

While there are limits on how much a candidate can spend on contesting elections, parties can spend an unlimited amount on fighting polls. After each election, parties are required to submit a detailed account of the expenses incurred, which includes spending on travel, rallies, advertisements and campaign materials.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Four members of a Bengali Muslim family have been missing for about 40 days after the police picked them up from their home in Murshidabad, accusing them of being undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, their family member told Scroll on Thursday.

The police confirmed to Scroll that the four men were handed over to the Border Security Force and claimed that they had been sent to Bangladesh.

Dablu Sheikh, 60, and his three sons – 29-year-old Kayem Sheikh, 20-year-old Rajaul Sheikh and 16-year-old Asmaul Sheikh – were picked up by plain-clothes police personnel from their home in Baliaghati village, said his wife, Jahanara Bibi.

This was done either on the night of August 13 or August 14, “although the exact date could not be recalled by Dablu Sheikh’s wife”, stated human rights group Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha.

Dablu Sheikh and Kayem Sheikh had featured on the electoral rolls of West Bengal after the special intensive revision exercise and voted in the 2026 Assembly elections. Scroll has verified their names in the electoral roll.

Dablu Sheikh’s father, Sk Samjani, was also a voter in the Suti Assembly constituency in 1966 and 1995.

Bibi said that the police have not given her any information about the whereabouts of her husband and sons since they were picked up. She rejected the police allegations that they are Bangladeshi.

“Police asked us whether we have any Bangladeshi document,” said Bibi. “We told them we do not know where Bangladesh is. We have not seen Bangladesh.”

Avijit Basu Mallick, the inspector-in-charge of Suti police station, said that the four persons were Bangladeshi nationals and “have been deported to Bangladesh”. Scroll could not confirm if the BSF had deported Dablu Sheikh and his sons.

“The family can speak lies,” Mallick told Scroll. “They are Bangladeshi.”

When asked if a first information had been registered against them, he said: “There is no need of a case under the Foreigners Act.”

He added that they were detained under a Union home ministry circular from May 2025 and sent to the Jangipur holding centre.

Scroll has written to the Jangipur superintendent of police for a comment. The copy will be updated if a response is received.

In May, soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, the West Bengal government announced it was setting up holding centres – to house alleged undocumented migrants – as part of a “detect, delete, deport” policy.

Scroll’s reporting has revealed that at least 10 Muslim men and two children have been picked up by the West Bengal Police since June and accused them of being Bangladeshis. The case of Dablu Sheikh and his sons takes the number of such detentions to 16.

Also read: In Bengal, Muslims picked up from homes in midnight raids, sent to detention centres

The Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha, or MASUM, on Thursday wrote to the West Bengal home secretary against the “arbitrary arrest, illegal detention, unlawful branding as ‘Bangladeshi’ and alleged push-back of” Dablu Sheikh and his sons.

The organisation stated that it “found material circumstances which raise serious questions regarding the official claim that Dablu Sheikh and his sons are foreign nationals”.

It also pointed out that despite electoral rolls indicating the family’s “long-standing presence and civic status in India”, the police had wrongfully branded them “Bangladeshi”.

MASUM also noted that the four detained persons possess an Aadhaar card, ration card and other residence-related documents.

“These circumstances call for a transparent and independent verification rather than an unexplained administrative declaration that the family is Bangladeshi,” the organisation stated.

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states, most of them ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after the state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

Edited by Sneha.

‘Illegal, arbitrary’: Why experts say detention regime in Bengal has fewer safeguards than Assam

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has proposed restricting the manufacture and sale of analogue products as “paneer” to prevent consumers from being misled about their nature and composition.

Analogue paneer is a non-dairy or partially synthetic substitute that replaces milk fat and milk solids with cheaper vegetable oils, making it cheaper to produce than dairy paneer.

The food regulator’s draft notification, issued on Tuesday, proposes barring products in the “analogue in dairy context” category from using the term “paneer” in their name, labels or marketing.

The regulator has invited public feedback on the draft within 60 days of its publication.

In recent months, several states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have banned the production and sale of analogue paneer, citing public health concerns.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sara Varghese.

A Delhi court on Thursday permitted a United States citizen and six Ukrainians, who were arrested by the National Investigation Agency in March for allegedly having links to ethnic armed groups in Myanmar that are hostile to India, to travel to their respective countries for a month, The Hindu reported.

The US citizen, Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, and the six Ukrainians were arrested on March 13. They were allegedly involved in supplying weapons and military equipment to ethnic armed groups operating in Myanmar, as well as providing them with training.

On September 8, the NIA filed a chargesheet against the seven foreigners for illegally entering, staying and moving in India under the 2025 Immigration and Foreigners Act.

Although they had been arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the agency had only accused them of immigration violations in the chargesheet.

Investigators alleged that they had entered India on valid visas, but later travelled to Mizoram without the mandatory restricted area permit. They were also accused of entering Myanmar and meeting ethnic groups hostile to India.

Officials alleged that the individuals received drone deliveries from Europe while in Mizoram.

They were reportedly arrested in Delhi, Kolkata and Lucknow while trying to leave India.

Van Dyke was granted default bail on September 18, while the six Ukrainians were granted bail on Wednesday.

Default bail is granted when an investigating agency fails to complete its probe and file a chargesheet within the statutory period while an accused is in custody.

While granting bail to Van Dyke, the court directed him not to leave Delhi and to appear before the NIA whenever summoned for questioning.

During Thursday’s hearing, the accused persons had sought permission to leave India to meet their families, saying they had not seen them for nearly 10 months. They had requested permission to remain abroad for six weeks. However, the court limited the period to one month, to be calculated from the date of their departure, The Hindu reported.

#WATCH | Delhi: Myanmar Training Camp case | Two foreign nationals from Ukraine and the US were released from Tihar Jail.

The special NIA court at Rouse Avenue has granted permission to US National Matthew Aaron Vandyke and 6 Ukrainian nationals to travel to the USA and Ukraine… pic.twitter.com/D7BVx2faKC

— ANI (@ANI) September 24, 2026

During the hearing, the NIA did not elaborate on whether they would need to be physically present in India in the immediate future for the investigation.

The court has directed the seven to assist the NIA’s investigation whenever required, either by appearing in person or through video conference. They were also asked to provide their addresses and phone numbers.

They been directed to return to India after one month and inform the court of their return within 72 hours.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Student street protests in India in July 2026 forced the country to pay more attention to its Gen Z population, the cohort of young people born after 1996, who are now between the ages of 14 and 29.

This has meant confronting questions around the availability of quality education, fairness in educational processes and outcomes, and the job market squeeze. Yet simultaneously, India’s Gen Z must also confront a country where being young is no longer the all-powerful force that it once was.

End of India’s baby boom

Being young in India has always meant being demographically dominant. India belonged to its children. Since 1950, the year from which reliable internationally comparable population data is available, children have always been the largest cohort in India. If you split the population up into equally-sized cohorts, each of which spanned 15 years, the group that was the largest in size was always children – those between the ages of 0 and 14. This held true whether you looked at them in absolute numbers, or in relative terms – children were India’s largest cohort.

That baby boom ended in the early 2000s. With falling birth rates – families choosing to have fewer children – the number of babies born in India every year began to fall. The first change with falling fertility is on the cohort of children. But this ultimately has a domino effect, with the number of young people then beginning to fall, and the population pyramid gradually inverting itself, resulting in a narrow apex of younger people and a wide bottom of older people.

With the number of babies born every year reducing, the number of 5-, 10-, and 15-year-olds began to gradually decline too. By the end of the first decade of this millennium, the total number of children under the age of 14 began to decline. In the late 2010s, this child cohort stopped being India’s largest population category and was overtaken by 15-29 year-olds.

For the first time in Indian history, children were no longer India’s largest 15-year age cohort. At almost exactly this time, India’s Gen Z began to enter the world.

Not Gen Z’s world

This piece borrows colloquial terms used for age cohorts in the United States. According to the Pew Research Centre, these age cohorts are defined in the following way:
Baby Boomers: those born between 1950 and 1964 (since data prior to 1950 is not available)

Gen X: born between 1965 and 1980

Millennials: born between 1981 and 1996

Gen Z: born between 1997 and 2012

Gen Alpha: born in 2013 and after.

As every generation is born, it has quickly grown to become the largest living cohort, driven by the dominance of younger age groups in India’s population. By the time India’s last Baby Boomers were born in 1964, they had grown to become the largest 15-year age-cohort in the country, making up 42% of the population. This was much the same for India’s Gen X who, by the time the last Gen X-er was born in 1980, made up 42% of the population. Millennials made up 40% of the population when the last Millennial was born in 1996.

But by the time India’s last Gen Z-er was born in 2012, this cohort made up just 32% of the population, the smallest this peak has ever been. India’s Gen Z has simply not experienced the dominance over Indian demographics that previous young generations have.

Moreover, there is little difference any more in numerical terms between being very young and being in your 30s and 40s.

At the peak of the relative size of the Gen X and Millennial cohorts, the previous age cohort (Boomers and Gen X respectively) were 12-15 percentage points smaller in size, meaning that the newly-young outnumbered the generation just before theirs in significant numbers.

When Gen Z peaked in size in 2012, Millennials were just two percentage points fewer in their share in the population. India’s Gen Z never really got to experience what it was like to be born into a world that was theirs – to experience what it felt like to be young in a country where the older people around them were much fewer in number, and where their generation was set to dominate the future.

This situation will only be exacerbated for India’s Gen Alpha, those born in 2013 and after. Even when Gen Alpha peaks in size in 2028, the generation older than them – Gen Z – will be larger in absolute numbers.

Weighed down by older generations

Being 14-29 years old, as Indian’s Gen Z is, in 2026, just not the same thing it used to be in India. Today’s 14-29-year-olds are, at 26%, the smallest share that this age group has been in India’s population in over 50 years.

When this age group was last this small, what was keeping them relatively small was the size of the population younger than them. In 1973, the share of 14-29-year-olds in India’s population was similar to what it is today. But at that time, the share of children under the age of 14 was another 41% of India’s population.

What is squeezing India’s 14-29-year-olds today is the size of the population older than them. In 2026, the share of children under the age of 14 is just 24%. But the share of those older than 14-29-year-olds is now half the population.

This, too, is only going to sharpen. India’s Gen Alpha, when they are 14-29-year-olds, will be the smallest in relative terms that cohort has ever been in India’s demographic history.

Shrinking youth cohort

It’s not just that India’s Gen Z is small now in relative terms. In 2026, India’s 14-29-year-old population is projected to begin to shrink in absolute terms for the first time in Indian history.

Relative shares apart, every age cohort has grown in absolute terms in 1950 as a result of fertility but also falling mortality in early childhood and from infectious diseases. Even with rapidly falling fertility from the 1980s onward, the combination of falling mortality and the momentum effect of fertility being close to replacement levels meant that all age groups were growing in size.

That stopped in the 2000s.

In the late 2010s, India’s child cohort began to shrink in absolute numbers, and the country has had fewer children between the ages of 0 and 14 every successive year since. This could have profound implications for planning around schools, pediatric healthcare, consumer products, and many other areas.

Even before this reality becomes widely discussed in Indian policy, the country must now rapidly confront the fact that it will have fewer 14-29-year-olds every year. This could have implications for higher education, job markets, and dynamics around marriage and childbirth. There are now fewer young people to plan for each year and far, far more older people. In 15 years, the only age group still growing in size will be the 60+ year-old cohort.

Securing their future

India’s Gen Z, as well as future generations of young people, will have to confront the fact that they will be making their case to people in positions of authority who are older than them, and who will only become more dominant. For generations, India’s children were also its future, but now it appears that gerontocracy lies ahead.

That is the direction India is moving toward, but at this moment, the power still lies with them. Today, Gen Z is India’s largest 15-year age-cohort, and by 2029, when India’s next general election will be held, nearly all of them will be eligible to vote.

Even with their numerical strength ebbing, there is still headroom in under-utilised potential. The number of college-eligible young people may begin to fall every year, but India’s Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education is just 32% and just 4% have had formal vocational training, meaning there are still millions more young Indians who could be better educated and skilled.

Fewer young people could mean fewer job market entrants, but India’s female labour force participation rate is still just 31%, meaning that millions more young women could still be supported to enter the paid workforce.

Finally, even where numbers are maxing out, quality remains a pressing concern. Despite there being fewer children now to enroll in school every year, the quality of government schools, for instance, remains severely lacking, as the newest phase of the Gen Z protests are now highlighting. Will fewer children and fewer young people mean that those who are there get better services, whether in school, or during examinations, or in the job market?

Rukmini S is the founder of Data For India and a CASI Affiliated Fellow. She has previously led data journalism in Indian newsrooms and is the author of Whole Numbers & Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India (Westland, 2021).

This article was first published on India in Transition, a publication of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.

What can a Jain merchant family in Mughal Ahmedabad tell us about doing business in India, both in the past and the present?

Quite a lot, as Sudev Sheth explains in this episode of Past Imperfect. Sheth is the author of Bankrolling Empire, the captivating story of how one business family, the Jhaveris of Ahmedabad, navigated the highs and lows of commercial life under Mughal suzerainty.

Although firmly enmeshed in the worlds of 17th- and 18th-century India, the Jhaveris faced challenges that any modern Indian business family can relate to. They reaped enormous benefits from close ties to the government – but also suffered when they got on the wrong side of certain officials. They were drawn into factional political disputes – but, as the 18th century wore on, realised that their wealth could influence the fortunes of satraps and entire kingdoms. And Jhaveri patriarchs, like so many Indian tycoons today, were kept awake at night by that thorny question: how to manage succession within the family?

A Jain family originally from Osian in Rajasthan, the Jhaveris migrated to Ahmedabad in the late 16th century, when the city was a young, flourishing trading centre. The Mughals had conquered Gujarat in the early 1570s. Under Shantidas Jhaveri (c 1584-1659), the family commenced a remarkably profitable relationship with Mughal authorities, including emperors.

In return for a steady supply of fine jewelry from Shantidas, the emperor Jehangir granted special rights to the family, including promises of non-interference from Mughal officials. Later, the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh relied on Shantidas to provide the court in Delhi with a steady stream of luxury items from the new world: pickled chilies, pineapples, and even turkeys.

The relationship between the Mughals and Jhaveris was, at the outset, one of mutual respect and tolerance. Mughal officials protected the Jain community and granted Shantidas inam lands around the sacred hill temples of Palitana. Jain texts extolled Mughal rule.

Matters began to change with Aurangzeb. As governor of Gujarat, the young Aurangzeb razed a Jain temple built by Shantidas in Ahmedabad. But he patched up any remaining ill-will by the time he became emperor: he invited Shantidas and his son to his coronation, recognizing the Jhaveris as important partners in empire.

What truly changed matters was the Deccan campaign. A 17th-century version of forever wars, Aurangzeb labored to extend his control south and fight off insurgents such as Shivaji. In the process, governors in Gujarat began leaning on merchant bankers like the Jhaveris for financial support for his overstrained army and bureaucracy.

“It is a very dangerous business, and I have not seen many people who do it and whose nose does not end up in the earth,” the French traveler Georges Roques commented about those merchants venturing into the new territory of debt-financing the state. When Mughal officials could not pay off outstanding loans, they resorted to extortion and violence.

Today, businesspersons who fall afoul of the Indian government are subject to “tax terrorism” and judicial harassment. In the waning years of the Mughal Empire, well after Aurangzeb’s death, Gujarati merchants faced far more physical forms of state violence. Khushalchand Jhaveri, Shantidas’s grandson, was jailed and whipped by the governor of Gujarat, who was desperately seeking financial resources.

But amidst such bouts of violence, merchants realised that a weakened state meant that they could exert far more political influence. Families like the Jhaveris propped up rival administrators and emerging kingdoms. This was especially true in Baroda, where another mercantile house, the Haribhaktis, was instrumental in consolidating the Gaikwad state. Sheth classifies the Haribhaktis as “a new kind of family business tied directly to the tumultuous fortunes of political aspirants in Gujarat,” words that have a certain contemporary ring about them.

In this sense, Gujarati merchants became significant power brokers in their own right, similar to the Jagat Seths in Bengal or, for that matter, the numerous business families in pre-modern Europe which propped up the fortunes of states and kingdoms. Post-Mughal Gujarat was part of a much more global story of changing dynamics between business and politics.

Remarkably, the Jhaveri family remains prominent today, some 14 generations later. Now known as the Lalbhais, they largely eschew national politics but remain major stakeholders in the business and civic worlds of Ahmedabad, where they preside over Arvind Limited and the Ahmedabad Education Society, which includes Ahmedabad University.

How has one family stayed in business despite more than five centuries of political churn?

“Business families survive because they are business agnostic,” Sheth remarks in this episode. The Jhaveris were quick to transition to new fields as the political and economic environment transformed. And, for the most part, they handled issues of succession with dexterity. These are timeless business lessons which remain as relevant today as they were in Mughal Gujarat.

Dinyar Patel is an associate professor of history at the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. His award-winning biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2020.

Past Imperfect is sponsored and produced by the Centre for Wisdom and Leadership at the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, said that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should resign from his post and “turn approver”. The Congress leader also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah “will be investigated” for “stealing the votes” of ordinary Indians.

He was speaking at a press conference in Delhi after an Indian Express’ investigation published on Wednesday revealed that two election commissioners had objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions about the panel’s special intensive revision of the electoral rolls.

Gandhi claimed that anti-incumbency had “disappeared” from several states in the country because the votes had been stolen. He added that if “votes are destroyed”, then “our Constitution has been destroyed”. Read on.

Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR, writes Anant Gupta

A Gujarat court granted bail to journalist Ravi Nair in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises over a series of posts he had made on X between October 2020 and July 2021. He had been sent to jail on September 17 for failing to appear in person for a hearing in the case.

On Wednesday, the Gujarat High Court refused to grant interim relief to him. He had also approached the sessions court seeking regular bail.

Nair’s posts in question were about the Adani Group relating to allegations by United States-based short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. Read on.

The Supreme Court revised its ruling from a day earlier, which had stayed an Allahabad High Court order quashing the National Security Act detention of a 25-year-old Delhi University graduate after the workers’ protest in Noida. The High Court’s direction for District Magistrate Medha Roopam to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to Chaudhary remains set aside.

The paragraphs that the Supreme Court stayed stated that Roopam’s conduct in detaining Chaudhary was “worthy of derision” and that she was “guilty of violating her oath of allegiance”.

The High Court had also warned that soon, the “errant in the bureaucracy [will] reduce the state of Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian dystopia”. Read on.

The Calcutta High Court questioned the Election Commission’s decision to allot the “envelope” poll symbol to the rebel faction of the Trinamool Congress. The symbol was earlier being used by the Indian Secular Front.

“Every time you are compelling people to come to the court,” the High Court said. “...183 symbols are there, why did you choose the envelope?”

The Election Commission told the court that while the Indian Secular Front had been allotted the symbol in 2021, and had contested elections using it in 2024 and 2026, the “envelope” was listed as a free symbol. Read on.

Trinamool symbol order: EC gave repeated extensions to rebel faction, then said ‘time not adequate’

The Calcutta High Court said it was “surprising” that Congress’ Nandigram bye-election candidate was arrested in yet another criminal case dating back to 2007 while he was in custody. This is the sixth case from 2007 in which Milan Pradhan has been arrested.

He had been arrested on September 18 in connection with a 2007 murder case and was subsequently shown to be arrested in four other cases.

The court noted that the state had said on Tuesday that the five cases in which Pradhan is in judicial custody were the only matters active against him. Read on.

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The Calcutta High Court has directed the West Bengal Police not to take any coercive action against journalists of Bengali newspaper Anandabazar Patrika till December 15 in connection with the first information report registered against them for using the phrase “saffron hooliganism” in a headline, Live Law reported on Thursday.

The headline was about clashes between members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Left-affiliated student groups at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University on August 20. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

An FIR was registered against the editorial team of Anandabazar Patrika, including editor Ishani Dutta Roy and chief reporter Soma Mukherjee.

The case will next be heard on December 1.

On September 2, the High Court declined an urgent hearing on the matter, indicating that the appropriate course of action for the journalists would be to file a petition seeking the quashing of the FIR.

The lawyer appearing for the journalists had told the court that such a petition had already been filed. He sought urgent relief, arguing that the case warranted immediate intervention.

However, the bench had said that the matter should be filed in the regular course and would be heard according to the applicable procedure.

On September 3, the state assured the court that no coercive action would be taken against the journalists, provided they cooperated with notices issued by the investigating authorities, Live Law reported.

The clash on August 20 took place during a general meeting of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students’ Union. The ABVP and Left-affiliated groups blamed each other for the violence and accused the other of bringing people from outside the university onto the campus.

Several students were injured and taken to a hospital.

In its report, Anandabazar Patrika had described the clashes as “gerua gundami”, or saffron hooliganism.

On September 1, a group of men purportedly associated with Hindutva outfits staged a protest outside the newspaper’s office and smeared saffron paint on its building.

Videos of the incident, widely shared on social media, showed several police personnel standing nearby as a group of men wearing saffron clothing painted the walls and shouted slogans, such as “Hindustan will not tolerate the insult of saffron”.

The newspaper’s authorities repainted the walls to their original colour a few hours later.

Edited by Sneha.

A Gujarat court on Thursday granted bail to journalist Ravi Nair in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises over a series of posts on X, Bar and Bench reported.

Nair was taken into custody on September 17 and sent to jail on the orders of a Gandhinagar court, which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him earlier this month for failing to appear in person for a hearing in the defamation case. The journalist had challenged the warrant and sought his release.

On Wednesday, the Gujarat High Court refused to grant interim relief to Nair. He had also approached the sessions court seeking regular bail. Gandhinagar Principal District and Sessions Judge Ashish JS Malhotra allowed his bail plea on Thursday.

The case pertains to a series of social media posts published by Nair between October 2020 and July 2021 about the Adani Group relating to allegations by United States-based short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

On February 10, a magistrate court in Gandhinagar convicted Nair and sentenced him to one year in prison.

The magistrate had said that Nair, as a journalist and public commentator, was expected to be conscious of the reach and impact of statements made on digital platforms, particularly when making categorical allegations that could affect reputations.

Nair challenged his conviction before an appellate court in Gandhinagar, which granted him bail on March 9 and directed him to remain present during the hearing of his appeal.

He was not present at a hearing on September 3, his lawyer had said. The court subsequently issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

The case is based on a complaint filed by Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Group, alleging that Nair published and disseminated a series of posts on the social media platform X containing false and defamatory statements intended to damage its reputation.

The company alleged that Nair’s posts did not amount to fair comment or legitimate criticism but were designed to undermine the credibility of the firm in the eyes of the public and investors.

Edited by Sneha.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, on Thursday said that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should resign from his post and “turn approver”.

The Congress leader also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah “will be investigated” for “stealing the votes” of ordinary Indians.

Gandhi was speaking at a press conference in Delhi in reference to The Indian Express’ investigation published on Wednesday, which revealed that two election commissioners had objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions about the poll panel’s special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The newspaper had reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

On Thursday, Gandhi started his press conference by displaying photos of businessperson Gautam Adani, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat, Shah, Modi, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Shah and Kumar. The MP alleged that these persons were “conspirators” in stealing votes.

He claimed that anti-incumbency had “disappeared” from several states in the country because the votes had been stolen. Gandhi added that if “votes are destroyed”, then “our Constitution has been destroyed”.

“It no longer has its power,” said the Congress leader. “If our Constitution is destroyed, our laws are illegal, and our institutions are attacked.”

Gandhi said there “are going to be consequences to this” and the Congress would not let “democracy be destroyed”. He further said that Kumar turning an approver “would be an act of nationalism”.

Opposition parties had also on Wednesday called for the removal of Kumar and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the information in the report.

After The Indian Express’ report on Wednesday, the Election Commission said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR

• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday said it was “surprising” that Congress’ Nandigram bye-election candidate was arrested in yet another criminal case dating back to 2007 while he was in custody, Bar and Bench reported. This is the sixth case from 2007 in which Milan Pradhan has been arrested.

Pradhan was arrested on September 18 in connection with a 2007 murder case. He was subsequently shown to be arrested in four other cases and is currently in judicial custody.

The arrest had come hours after former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that her faction of the Trinamool Congress would support him in the October 6 bye-poll. Minutes earlier, the faction’s candidate had withdrawn her nomination. This came shortly after photographs of her meeting West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari were shared online.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya was hearing Pradhan’s petition alleging that he had been “brazenly” implicated in a sixth case, despite the West Bengal government having stated during a hearing on Tuesday that he was not wanted in any other case, Live Law reported.

On Tuesday, the court recorded the state’s submission that Pradhan had 11 cases against him and he had been arrested in five of them, Live Law reported. Of the remaining six cases, five had been closed and he was not an accused in the sixth, the state had stated.

The court had also recorded the state’s assurance that Pradhan will not be arrested in any other criminal case from 2007, while declining to issue directions for interim protection.

During the hearing on Thursday, Pradhan’s counsel alleged that a trial court a day earlier had remanded the Congress candidate to judicial custody till October 7, a day after the bye-poll, in another case despite the court’s order on Tuesday, Bar and Bench reported.

However, the state said that Pradhan had been arrested in the case on Saturday, before the High Court heard the matter on Tuesday. It said that a production warrant had been issued and Pradhan was already in custody in connection with the case.

A production warrant is a judicial order directing the prison authorities to present a person already in custody before the court for specific proceedings, inquiry, trial or to give evidence.

However, the court noted that the state had said on Tuesday that the five cases in which Pradhan is in custody, were the only matters active against him, Live Law reported.

The state cited a Tuesday report and an order of the additional chief judicial magistrate to say that Pradhan had been arrested in the case on Saturday, Live Law reported.

However, the court said that the report had not been submitted before it when it had passed its earlier order.

The court directed the police not to take any coercive action against Pradhan in connection with the sixth case till October 12. It also said that the Congress candidate should not be treated as arrested in the case.

The cases against Pradhan stem from a series of protests that had broken out in Nandigram in 2007 against the plans by the Left Front government at the time to set up a chemical hub. Fourteen persons had been killed in police firing during the land acquisition stir.

The incident sparked national outrage, following which the Calcutta High Court had suo motu ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the violence.

The Nandigram bye-poll was necessitated after Adhikari vacated the seat. The chief minister had won the Nandigram and Bhabanipur seats during the Assembly elections in May.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign on Thursday said it would launch a nationwide agitation if Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar does not resign within 48 hours.

“We will not withdraw such a protest without Gyanesh Kumar resigning,” said the campaign’s founder Abhijeet Dipke.

The campaign also demanded criminal proceedings against Kumar.

The Cockroach Janta Party’s demand came after The Indian Express’ investigation on Wednesday revealed that two election commissioners had objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions about the poll panel’s special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The newspaper had reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

At a press conference in Delhi, Dipke claimed that Kumar was “working under the instructions” of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

He also questioned why the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was defending Kumar.

Dipke said that the Cockroach Janta Party was seeking “systemic reforms” so that election commissioners are appointed in a fair manner, and they are not “someone’s favourite”.

The campaign also demanded that all upcoming elections should be put on hold, an immediate “freeze” on the SIR and an independent inquiry into the voter roll revision exercise.

The youth-led campaign said that voter lists should be rolled back to as they were in January 2025, before the SIR began.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The Cockroach Janta Party also demanded that the 2023 law on the appointment of election commissioners be repealed. “Draft a new law with active participation of civil society, an independent selection process that inspires public confidence,” the campaign said.

The law states that the head of the poll panel and the two other top members are to be appointed based on the recommendations of a selection committee comprising the prime minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The composition of the panel means that the government enjoys a 2:1 majority over the leader of the Opposition, if there is a difference of opinion.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court referred to a larger bench pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the law.

CEC Gyanesh Kumar is the biggest Anti National in this country.

He should resign immediately. pic.twitter.com/NXx68NShPm

— Cockroach Janta Party - CJP (@Cockroachisback) September 24, 2026

Opposition parties had also on Wednesday called for the removal of Kumar and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the information in the report.

After The Indian Express’ report on Wednesday, the Election Commission said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

Many Indian newspapers on Thursday led their front pages with reports about The Indian Express’ investigation about two election commissioners having objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

Some of the newspapers clubbed the developments with the Supreme Court’s decision to refer to a larger bench pleas challenging the constitutionality of a 2023 law for the appointment of election commissioners.

Others such as The Hindu led with the Opposition’s call for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for “illegal conduct” and its demands for a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the information in the report.

The Indian Express had reported on Wednesday that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to new registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Also read:

• Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

On its front page, the Hindustan Times focused on the Supreme Court’s decision to refer pleas against the 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment Act to a larger bench.

The law states that the head of the poll panel and the two other top members are to be appointed based on the recommendations of a selection committee comprising the prime minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The composition of the panel means that the government enjoys a 2:1 majority over the leader of the Opposition, if there is a difference of opinion.

The bench was hearing six petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law. On July 30, the court reserved its decision on the Union government’s request to refer the matter to a larger bench.

The newspaper also reported on its front page that the Opposition was planning to file a fresh impeachment motion against Kumar and the Election Commission’s defence amid the row.

On its national news page inside, the Hindustan Times carried detailed reports about the poll panel’s statement, the Opposition’s plans to raise the matter and former Election Commission Ashok Lavasa saying that the concerns raised by Sandhu and Joshi were “very serious”.

After The Indian Express’ report on Wednesday, the Election Commission said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Also read: ‘CEC ruling like a dictator’: Opposition on report that poll commissioners objected to SIR decisions

The Times of India also led with the Supreme Court’s decision on the pleas against the 2023 law. This was followed by reports on the Opposition demanding the removal of Kumar and the Election Commission’s statements on the allegations.

The Indian Express, The Hindu and the Hindustan Times also published editorials demanding answers from the chief election commissioner. While The Indian Express said that the Supreme Court “must not turn away”, The Hindu said that Kumar “must resign”.

Hindi language newspaper Amar Ujala in its lead headline clubbed the “division” between the election commissioners, the poll panel claiming that there was nothing unusual about concerns being raised internally and the Opposition’s reaction.

Hindi language newspaper Navbharat Times in its Delhi edition focussed on the gangrape of a minor in the national capital. But lower on the front page, it reported that there were “allegations of a difference of opinion” within the Election Commission about the SIR and the poll panel’s claim that decisions had been made with consensus.

Its Mumbai edition front page led with a report about the Election Commission row.

Dainik Bhaskar, another Hindi language newspaper, on its front page focussed on The Indian Express investigation.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Read Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision exercise here.

The Supreme Court on Thursday revised its ruling from a day earlier, which stayed an Allahabad High Court order quashing the National Security Act detention of a 25-year-old Delhi University graduate after the workers’ protest in Noida, reported Live Law.

On Wednesday, a bench of Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and NK Singh had stayed the entire judgement by the High Court, which included directions for the Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation from her salary to the student, Akriti Chaudhary.

In the revised order published on Thursday, the court revoked the portion about the quashing of Chaudhary’s detention, the legal news outlet reported.

Part quashing detention not stayed

Chaudhary has been in jail for more than five months. She had been detained on April 11, two days before the protest in Noida turned violent, her family stated. In May, the Uttar Pradesh Police invoked the National Security Act against her while she was in custody.

The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial up to a year.

Despite her detention under the Act being quashed by the High Court on September 2, she remained in jail because she has been named in several first information reports in connection with the protest.

On September 2, the High Court said that Rs 5 lakh compensation for Chaudhary should be deducted from the salary of Roopam, who had passed the order to detain her, and other officials responsible for enforcing it.

The detention order against Chaudhary was devoid of material evidence and was passed “without application of mind”, the High Court bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev had said.

Roopam and the Uttar Pradesh government had challenged the High Court order.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court stayed the order and “particularly” paragraph 27 to paragraph 33 of the High Court order.

The paragraphs stated that Roopam’s conduct in detaining Chaudhary was “worthy of derision” and that she was “guilty of violating her oath of allegiance”. The High Court had also warned that soon, the “errant in the bureaucracy [will] reduce the state of Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian dystopia”.

Revising its order, the Supreme Court said on Thursday that it had not stayed paragraph 25 of the High Court verdict that quashed Chaudhary’s detention under the National Security Act, Live Law reported.

Appearing for Roopam, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had argued that the High Court’s directions against the district magistrate were “unwarranted”. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, said the order was “totally uncalled for”, Live Law had reported.

The Noida workers’ protest

On April 13, about 40,000 to 45,000 workers from several industrial units had gathered in parts of the city to press long-standing demands that their salaries be increased. The protests came amid increasing gas prices because of the supply disruption caused by the war in West Asia.

The demonstration had turned violent, with videos widely shared on social media showing some protesters throwing stones and vandalising property.

On April 14, more than 350 persons had been arrested in connection with the violence.

In its order, the High Court had said that the district magistrate had detained Chaudhary only to “set an example out of the petitioner and deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in public spaces in support of the labourers”.

This observation was also stayed by the Supreme Court.

Edited by Sneha.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday denied anticipatory bail to YouTuber Ajeet Bharti in a case pertaining to his allegedly derogatory and casteist remarks about Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) MP Chandra Shekhar Aazad, Bar and Bench reported.

Aazad is the president of the party and the chief of the Dalit rights organisation Bhim Army.

The first information report against Bharti was filed based on a complaint by the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) on August 23.

The party alleged that Bharti made “caste-based, abusive, humiliating, sexually degrading and potentially inflammatory statements” about Aazad and about BR Ambedkar in a video where he spoke about the anti-reservation protests held at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in August.

On Thursday, Justice Saurabh Banerjee dismissed the anticipatory bail plea saying that as per the available material, Bharti had committed offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, reported Live Law.

On September 7, a sessions court had also dismissed Bharti’s anticipatory bail petition in the case. The YouTuber had moved the High Court against this.

In addition to the SC and ST Act, he had also been booked under the Information Technology Act and provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, and criminal intimidation.

The YouTuber had claimed that he had made the comments in response to abusive social media posts targeting his sister. He denied using casteist slurs about Aazad and claimed that the first information report was filed because of pressure from the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).

“My remarks were made as a reaction because somebody said my married sister should marry someone,” Bharti’s counsel, Jai Anant Dehadrai, had told the Delhi court during a previous hearing. “This was a grave provocation.”

On August 21, thousands joined a protest at Jantar Mantar to demand that quotas in educational institutes and government jobs should be based on economic criteria rather than caste. Several persons were detained and removed from the site by the police.

Though the police had given permission for the event to be held at Ramlila Maidan, protesters gathered at Jantar Mantar in the heart of the national capital.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Allahabad High Court order that had quashed the National Security Act detention of a 25-year-old Delhi University graduate after the workers’ protest in Noida, reported Live Law.

A bench of Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and NK Singh also set aside the High Court’s direction to Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation from her salary to Akriti Chaudhary.

The video recording of the proceedings was muted by the court, and media access was blocked, reported Live Law.

On September 2, the High Court said that the compensation should be deducted from the salary of Roopam, who had passed the order to detain Chaudhary, and other officials responsible for enforcing it.

The detention order against Chaudhary was devoid of material evidence and was passed “without application of mind”, the High Court bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev had said.

Chaudhary has been in jail for more than five months. She had been detained on April 11, two days before the protest in Noida turned violent, her family stated. In May, the Uttar Pradesh Police invoked the National Security Act against her while she was in custody.

The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial up to a year.

Despite her detention under the Act being quashed, she remained in jail because she has been named in several first information reports in connection with the protest.

The High Court order had been challenged by Roopam as well as the Uttar Pradesh government.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court also stayed paragraphs 27 to 33 of the High Court order, which stated that Roopam’s conduct in detaining Chaudhary was “worthy of derision” and that she was “guilty of violating her oath of allegiance”.

The High Court had also warned that soon, the “errant in the bureaucracy [will] reduce the state of Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian Dystopia”.

Appearing for Roopam, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the High Court’s directions against the district magistrate were “unwarranted”. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, said the order was “totally uncalled for”, reported Live Law.

On April 13, about 40,000 to 45,000 workers from several industrial units had gathered in parts of the city to press long-standing demands that their salaries be increased. The protests came amid increasing gas prices because of the supply disruption caused by the war in West Asia.

The demonstration had turned violent, with videos widely shared on social media showing some protesters throwing stones and vandalising property.

On April 14, more than 350 persons had been arrested in connection with the violence.

In its order, the High Court said that the district magistrate had detained Chaudhary only to “set an example out of the petitioner and deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in public spaces in support of the labourers”.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: ‘Srishti’s crime is empathy’: Who is the young artist jailed for supporting Noida workers’ protest?

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday questioned the Election Commission’s decision to allot the “envelope” poll symbol, earlier used by the Indian Secular Front, to the rebel faction of the Trinamool Congress, asking whether such decisions were forcing persons to initiate legal proceedings, Live Law reported.

“Every time you are compelling people to come to the court,” the High Court was quoted as saying. “...183 symbols are there, why did you choose the envelope?”

The court told the counsel for the poll panel: “Your authorities are only pinching the people to create legal proceedings? This is their way to work?”

On September 18, the Election Commission allotted new names and symbols to the two factions of the TMC for the upcoming bye-elections. The Arup Roy-led rebel faction was allotted the name Democratic Trinamool Congress and the “envelope” as its symbol.

The Indian Secular Front, a political party based in West Bengal, moved the court against the decision. It said that allotting the symbol to another party could confuse voters since the Indian Secular Front was also contesting the October 6 bye-polls.

The Indian Secular Front suggested that the Election Commission freeze the “envelope” symbol for all parties and allot different symbols.

The Election Commission told the court that while the Indian Secular Front had been allotted the symbol in 2021, and had contested elections using it in 2024 and 2026, the “envelope” was listed as a free symbol.

However, the court noted that the Indian Secular Front’s grievance was that a symbol previously used by one party had been allotted to another party.

“Once the election started you are creating all the trouble and the parties are coming to court, putting burden on the court,” Live Law quoted the court as saying.

It added that the Election Commission should have considered reserving the symbol once it had been used by a political party.

The counsel for the poll panel sought time to take instructions and the hearing was adjourned.

Why did TMC get a new symbol?

The TMC has been beset by internal divisions and rebellions after it lost the Assembly elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party in May. Nearly 60 out of the TMC’s 80 MLAs have rebelled against the party leadership to choose Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. The faction later appointed Roy as its chairperson.

The group was also recognised by the Assembly speaker as the TMC’s legislature party in the House, and Ritabrata Banerjee has been recognised as the leader of the Opposition.

At the national level, 20 of the TMC’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs in June announced a merger with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India. The group is supporting the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lower House of Parliament.

Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament in July, the Lok Sabha speaker accepted the request of the rebel MPs to sit separately in the Lok Sabha. However, the group is yet to be recognised as the Nationalist Citizens Party of India in the House.

On September 17, the Election Commission barred both factions from using the party’s original name and the traditional “flowers and grass” symbol in the October 6 bye-polls.

The next day it allotted new symbols and names to the factions. The group led by Mamata Banerjee was assigned the name “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress” with the symbol “football player”.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

News associations on Wednesday expressed concern about the continued imprisonment of journalist Ravi Nair in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises over a series of posts on X.

Digipub News India Foundation, an association of independent digital news organisations and journalists of which Scroll is a member, said that the continued imprisonment of Nair is “deeply disturbing”.

Nair was sentenced to one year in prison in February, but his sentence was suspended and he was granted bail while his appeal was pending.

He was taken into custody on September 17 and sent to jail on the orders of a Gandhinagar court, which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him earlier this month for failing to appear in person for a hearing in the defamation case. The journalist had challenged the warrant and sought his release.

On Wednesday, the Gujarat High Court declined to release Nair and reserved its decision on his challenge to the warrant.

Digipub News India Foundation asked why a journalist was being kept in custody before the final outcome of his appeal.

The case must concern the media community, the foundation said.

“The same corporate entity pursuing criminal defamation proceedings against a journalist also ultimately controls a major news organisation whose journalists operate in the same profession and ecosystem,” the organisation said.

It added: “This is not merely about Ravi Nair. It is about the chilling message such a case can send to every independent journalist investigating or questioning powerful corporate interests.”

If such detentions became the “new normal”, Nair “will not be the last journalist to face it”, Digipub said, adding that “tomorrow, any journalist who investigates the powerful could find themselves in the same position”.

Press freedom cannot survive if the cost of holding powerful institutions to account is imprisonment, it added.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said that it was monitoring the continued detention of Nair.

The New York-based global media watchdog said that journalists “should never be targeted, harassed or detained simply for doing their jobs” and that the authorities should “respect journalists’ right to report freely and without fear of reprisal”.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International raised concerns about Nair’s arrest. “It poses serious questions around people’s freedom of expression and fair trial rights in the country,” the organisation said in a social media post.

The case pertains to a series of social media posts made by Nair between October 2020 and July 2021 about the Adani Group relating to allegations by United States-based short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

On February 10, a magistrate court in Gandhinagar convicted Nair and sentenced him to one year in prison.

The magistrate had said that Nair, as a journalist and public commentator, was expected to be conscious of the reach and impact of statements made on digital platforms, particularly when making categorical allegations that could affect reputations.

Nair challenged his conviction before an appellate court in Gandhinagar, which granted him bail on March 9 and directed him to remain present during the hearing of his appeal.

He was not present at a hearing on September 3, his lawyer had said. The court subsequently issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Nine persons died after an air-conditioned sleeper bus carrying 35 passengers caught fire in Greater Noida on Wednesday night, the Hindustan Times reported.

A spark or blast in the air-conditioning system caused the engine oil to catch fire and the flames spread rapidly, the police said.

The bus was travelling from Noida to Mahoba when it caught fire around 11pm in Dayanatpur village in Jewar, Gautam Buddh Nagar district, on the Yamuna Expressway.

A few passengers noticed a burning smell and asked the driver to stop, Jewar Station House Officer Ajay Kumar Singh told the Hindustan Times.

“By the time the driver stopped the vehicle, the fire broke out and quickly engulfed the vehicle,” Singh was quoted as saying. “There were 35 passengers onboard. Nine people, including a woman, failed to escape.”

The driver and the conductor fled and efforts are underway to nab them, the police added.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

An Indian seafarer was killed in an attack on a commercial ship off the coast of Oman on Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs said. The vessel was sailing towards India when two torpedoes struck the ship, the Forward Seamen’s Union of India said.

Suraj Yadav, from Uttar Pradesh, is the 11th Indian seafarer to be killed in the Strait of Hormuz since the war in West Asia began, in attacks involving four Indian ships and 60 foreign-flagged vessels, the Hindustan Times reported.

The MV Cape Dao had 28 crew members on board, including 20 Indians, the union said. The Ministry of External Affairs said 19 of the 20 Indian seafarers were rescued.

Tweet does not exist

The ministry added that the “continuing incidents of attacks on commercial shipping in the region are deeply worrisome”.

“We reiterate our call for dialogue and diplomacy to de-escalate tensions and enable early return of peace to the region,” the ministry said. “The targeting of commercial shipping, seafarers and civilian infrastructure in the region must end, and free and unimpeded navigation and commerce through the international waterways in the region must be restored at the earliest.”

The union said that “innocent civilian seafarers are being slaughtered in and around Hormuz”.

It demanded “immediate accountability, safe passage, and justice for Suraj Yadav and every Indian seafarer still at risk”.

West Asia war

The war in West Asia began when the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, targeting major cities in Gulf countries and ships.

On June 15, the US and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels. However, diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled since then.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The West Bengal Congress has challenged the election affidavit of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Nandigram bye-poll candidate in the Calcutta High Court, citing a discrepancy between her stated age and the year she claims to have passed Class 10 examinations, Live Law reported.

Hasirani Rath has not mentioned her date of birth in the affidavit but has stated her age as “60+ years”. In her educational qualifications, she has stated that she passed the Class 10 examination from Chowkhali Ganga Padma Milan Kanya Vidyapith in 1965, NDTV quoted the Congress as saying in its petition.

If Rath is between 60 years and 65 years of age now, she would have been between four years and nine years of age in 1965, when she has stated that she passed Class 10.

Congress leader and advocate Riju Ghosal raised the matter before Justice Krishna Rao, saying the affidavit contained details that appeared to be factually inconsistent, Live Law reported.

Ghosal also told the court that the Election Commission had scrutinised Rath’s affidavit but did not take action over the alleged discrepancy.

The Congress sought cancellation of Rath’s candidature if the educational qualification mentioned in the affidavit is found to be incorrect, Live Law reported.

However, the BJP has said that Rath was a Class 10 student at the school mentioned in 1980, and not as indicated in the affidavit, The Hindu reported.

The Nandigram bye-poll is scheduled for October 6.

Congress seeks bail of its Nandigram candidate

The West Bengal Congress also moved the High Court seeking bail for its Nandigram bye-poll candidate Milan Pradhan, who was arrested on September 18 in connection with a 2007 murder case, NDTV reported.

The arrest had come hours after former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that her faction of the Trinamool Congress would support him in the bye-polls. Minutes earlier, the faction’s candidate, Sanchita Pradhan, had withdrawn her nomination. This came shortly after photographs of her meeting West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari were shared online.

The bye-poll was necessitated after Adhikari vacated the Nandigram seat.

The chief minister had won the Nandigram and Bhabanipur seats during the Assembly elections in May. He had defeated the TMC’s Pabitra Kar by more than 9,600 votes in Nandigram.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Vivek Joshi, one of India’s three election commissioners, raised an internal alarm in May about the “gradual centralisation” of voter lists, The Indian Express reported in its investigation about divisions within the top leadership of the Election Commission on Wednesday.

By then, however, the process of drawing up the electoral roll of West Bengal had already been centralised despite fervent opposition. In fact, the issue of centralisation came up repeatedly in political debates and courtroom hearings during the six-month-long special intensive revision of voter lists in the state.

Eventually, the names of over 91 lakh voters were deleted from Bengal’s rolls even though almost a third of them submitted documents and attended hearings to challenge their exclusion. The scale of deletions proved to be significant in shaping the results of the Assembly elections that took place in April, as Scroll has previously reported.

Neither the Election Commission nor the Supreme Court followed the principle of decentralisation, which is clearly established in the law that governs the drawing up of electoral rolls in India.

Section 13B of The Representation of the People Act of 1950 states that voter lists for every Assembly constituency “shall be prepared and revised by an electoral registration officer”. These officers are supposed to be local government officials who are appointed by the Election Commission “in consultation” with state governments to fulfil this responsibility.

But in Bengal, their power was systematically curtailed by an overbearing Election Commission, while the Supreme Court dithered in deciding on the legal validity of its actions. Here is a recap of how this was done:

Generating Notices

The special intensive revision of voter lists turned controversial in Bengal after the Election Commission began issuing notices to some of those 7.1 crore voters who had submitted the enumeration forms that it had earlier asked them to fill out.

Notices were sent to voters who were unable to show that either they or their parents were voters in 2002. In addition to this, a whopping 1.4 crore voters received notices for what the Election Commission called “logical discrepancies”.

These were voters whose forms were flagged for name or gender mismatch with their entries in the 2002 voter list. Several voters were summoned for hearings because the number of siblings they had or their age gap with their parents or grandparents was deemed unusual.

The notices were generated centrally using software which flagged issues in the forms that voters had submitted. It is unclear how the Election Commission came up with the criteria that were laid down for flagging voters.

Section 22 of The Representation of the People Act of 1950 only empowers a local bureaucrat called the electoral registration officer to correct and delete entries from the voter rolls. They can do so on their own or if they receive an application for doing so, provided they are “satisfied” after conducting an inquiry that the entry in question is erroneous.

But on the ground in Bengal, electoral registration officers complained that they had no say in generating these notices. “We have no power to decide which elector will be called for a hearing,” one such officer from Nadia district told The Indian Express in December, adding that the notices were “automatically generated”.

An association of state government employees even wrote to the Election Commission outlining their concerns about the process.

“Names of electors might be deleted from the electoral roll without the knowledge of the ERO [electoral registration officer],” wrote Saikat Asraf Ali, general secretary of the West Bengal Civil Service (Executive) Officers’ Association. “The common people who will be affected by such action will only blame the ERO without knowing that the ERO has been kept out of the entire deletion process by the commission.”

Deciding Eligibility to Vote

Those who received these notices had to then show up for hearings. The law states that the “electoral registration officer shall give the person concerned a reasonable opportunity of being heard” before taking any action. While it allows these officers to employ other persons to assist them in the task of drawing up the rolls, the final decision with regard to inclusion or deletion of voters must be theirs.

However, this provision was turned on its head in Bengal. The Reporters’ Collective reported at the time that the Election Commission inserted observers into the exercise and gave them a veto over decisions made by the electoral registration officers.

Petitioners who had challenged the constitutional validity of the revision process in Bengal before the Supreme Court also took up this issue. The Election Commission asserted in court that the power of the observers was “limited to assisting the EROs [electoral registration officers] in the decision-making process”.

On February 9, the court accepted this assertion at face value and reiterated that “the final decision will be taken by the EROs [electoral registration officers] only”. Despite this, the cases of more than 60 lakh voters who attended hearings and produced documents remained undecided with Assembly elections just around the corner.

Taking note of the “extraordinary” situation, the Supreme Court decided to transfer these cases to judicial officers. That is how The Representation of the People Act of 1950, which vests the power to determine the eligibility of voters only in the office of the electoral registration officer, was cast aside.

The judicial officers restored the names of about 33 lakh voters to the electoral roll ahead of the election. But more than 27 lakh voters were deprived of their right to vote.

The Indian Express investigation published on Wednesday does not mention these 27 lakh voters. It instead cites the example of Goa, where electoral registration officers repeatedly complained in February that the Election Commission’s software did not let them include the names of 97 voters with “logical discrepancies” whom they had found to be genuine.

Accepting Documents

Electoral registration officers decide to include or exclude voters on the basis of the documents that are submitted before them. The special intensive revision of voter rolls in Bengal saw even this simple procedure becoming centralised and, therefore, controversial.

First, the Election Commission put out a list of documents which officers were supposed to accept. Its list did not include Aadhaar, the document with the maximum coverage across India. When the Supreme Court ordered that Aadhaar be added to the list, the poll body worked around this by asking officers to seek additional documents from voters it summoned for hearings.

The Election Commission also opposed proposals to consider Class X admit cards issued by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education for voters who were sent notices. Notably, the letter turning down one such proposal came from the poll body’s head office in Delhi.

The decision affected voters in rural Bengal who have few other documents in their possession. Civil society organisations and political parties once again went to the Supreme Court to challenge it. Ultimately, this question was settled in favour of accepting Class X admit cards, but along with pass certificates.

Notwithstanding this particular decision, constitutional law experts have criticised the Supreme Court’s handling of the special intensive revision of voter rolls in Bengal. Lawyer Gautam Bhatia wrote an op-ed piece likening the approach adopted by the court to that of an “administrator”. The Supreme Court, he argued, had restricted its interventions to minutiae while allowing the process, on the whole, to continue.

“It is worth remembering that in a constitutional democracy, the Court’s primary role is to ensure that other state organs comply with the Constitution, and not to transform itself into an administrator,” Bhatia wrote in The Hindu.

Before Bengal: Bihar

The controversy over the role of the judiciary, in fact, predates the conduct of the roll revision exercise in Bengal. In December itself, The Indian Express had reported that notices were being generated centrally and not by electoral registration officers in Bihar, the first state where the special intensive revision of voter lists was carried out last year.

The issue came up before the Supreme Court when it was hearing a challenge pertaining to the process in Bihar. The petitioners argued that the Election Commission had ignored Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. These rules lay down the process of verification to be followed by the electoral registration officer before deleting the names of voters.

In May 2026, the court upheld the new process, saying that the 1960 rules should not be read in an “unduly restrictive manner”. The new rules differed from the “form” of Rule 21A, but the “substance remains intact”, the two-judge bench led by the chief justice said in its judgement.

After a parched summer was followed by devastating floods in Mumbai in early July, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a Rs 13,000-crore “integrated flood mitigation plan” to turn the metropolis into a “sponge city”.

The “sponge city” concept, proposed over a decade ago by the Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu, is a metaphor for an urban green landscape’s potential and capacity to soak and store surface water, particularly during heavy rains.

In the case of Mumbai, the new integrated masterplan proposes crores worth of “nature-based” interventions alongside conventional stormwater drainage infrastructure work.

However, many of these proposed interventions are at stark odds with Mumbai’s model of urban development. The integrated masterplan proposes creating and engineering solutions using ecological systems for mitigating floods while the city’s administrators have been actively destroying Mumbai’s these very ecological systems for “development”.

Instead of critically re-examining the city’s development model that prioritises land value over water, the latest “integrated flood mitigation plan” would amount to little more than pouring crores down Mumbai’s drains.

What is in the integrated masterplan?

The latest integrated masterplan is envisioned as a mega project for flood mitigation in Mumbai– one that is even bigger and costlier than the decades-old Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drainage masterplan, also known as BRIMSTOWAD.

Since its inception in 1993, the BRIMSTOWAD has focused on building and augmenting drainage infrastructure, such as open and closed drains, pumping stations, embankments for nallas, and the like. These are also known as “grey infrastructure” as concrete and steel are predominantly used in constructing them.

The new integrated masterplan, “proposes a mix of engineering and ecological interventions” in addition to the grey infrastructure. Owing to the green and blue (water-based) elements involved in this process, the nature-based interventions arising out of this approach are termed as “blue-green infrastructure”.

This supposedly novel approach to make Mumbai a “sponge city” intends to subsume within it some features of the BRIMSTOWAD and the Adani-led phase of the Mithi Rejuvenation Project – a mega project intended for sewage treatment, pollution prevention and flood control along the stretches of Mumbai’s Mithi river.

‘Sponge city’ contradiction

Mumbai’s geography provides for most of the features required to implement the sponge city model: coastal mangroves, rivers, lakes, wetlands and forests such as the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Aarey.

All of these have performed vital functions of flood control and climate regulation for several decades at little cost to the public exchequer.

However, the city’s planning regime has not only overlooked measures to conserve them, it has actively endorsed their destruction in the name of development.

The integrated masterplan proposes mangrove and wetland restoration when the city’s planning authorities are currently axing 45,000 mangroves for the Rs 33,000-crore Coastal Road North project – the Versova-Dahisar coastal expressway that’s also proposed to be extended till Bhayandar.

1,237 Mangroves to Make Way for Mumbai’s Next Bridge

The Bombay High Court has allowed their removal for the proposed Versova–Madh Island bridge.

BMC says it will plant 39,000 mangroves over 9 hectares and monitor them for 10 years.

The court has made it clear: break that… pic.twitter.com/sbnBcD7J1Q

— Mumbai Heritage (@mumbaiheritage) September 18, 2026

It intends to develop sponge-parks for ecological resilience while the municipality has proposed developing parking under public parks, building a layer of concrete that will stop rain water from percolating into the ground.

The municipal corporation’s recent push to convert the Neville D’souza football ground in Bandra into an exhibition centre is yet another example of its developmental spree to monetise Mumbai’s open spaces.

The new plan calls for developing green corridors while the city is busy tunnelling through 49.39 hectares (roughly equivalent to 70 full-size football grounds) of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to construct an 11.85 km tunnel-road costing Rs.18,838-crore. Simultaneously, the National Park’s eco-sensitive zone is also being opened up for a range of “developmental” projects.

The new plan’s thoughtful consideration to make pavements permeable overlooks the fact that most parts of Mumbai lack pavements to begin with. It has also proposed bioswales, bioretention and detention systems which are essentially engineered ponds and vegetated porous-ditches for absorbing or slowly releasing excess runoff.

However, these sophisticated solutions are proposed in tandem with the legally sanctioned encroachment of the city’s existing waterbodies and permeable salt-pan lands for real-estate gains and industrial waste-dumping.

The authorities acknowledge that such “targeted interventions based on scientific modelling” are not some “magic wand” to eliminate flooding. Yet, they somehow assume that all these contradictions will miraculously disappear during implementation.

Land value is priority

The dire social and environmental costs of the degradation of rivers and lakes, shrinking of green spaces and wetlands, and loss of coastal habitats and livelihoods, arising out of the city’s planning make it obvious that Mumbai’s development model values its land over – and often at the cost of – its water.

The growth of such value demands an ever-increasing appetite for concretising more land, which in turn reduces its capacity to soak water. Hence, it is not really lack of planning or corruption that shapes Mumbai’s uneven, real-estate driven urban development, as is popularly argued, but rather this specific kind of planning.

Planning tools such as zoning, building regulations and bylaws are meticulously designed and modified to achieve the highest price from land.

Similarly, to propose solutions to Mumbai’s drainage problems, there needs to be a thorough understanding of what causes them in the first place.

But the last official analysis of Mumbai’s drainage was conducted over two decades ago by the Chitale Committee in 2006. For a city where redevelopment outpaces development, such studies should have ideally been conducted annually at best or every five years at least.

Nearly three months after Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, in the state assembly announced the grand Rs 13,000-crore integrated flood control master plan to tackle Mumbai’s chronic flooding problem mainly in low lying areas the BMC has drawn up a ₹7,345.85-crore plan to be… pic.twitter.com/zH4OmAy5fY

— Richa Pinto (@richapintoi) September 22, 2026

It is, thus, not incidental that a city thirsting for water is transformed, in a matter of a few hours of intense rainfall, into one that’s drowning in water.

As a consequence, when considering the “sponge-city” based integrated masterplan, it is worth asking if it has been proposed without any critical assessment of the city’s ecology. Are solutions being planned before analysing the problem?

For instance, a lot of emphasis is placed on what the Rs 13,000-crore plan proposes, and not actually on how it will be realised. In a rational approach, money follows planning: budgets are allocated based on the needs of how plans are to be carried out for achieving their outcomes.

But in Mumbai, planning follows money: projects are manufactured to fulfil budgetary allocations, irrespective of whether they actually achieve their objectives. Detailed reports of plans often appear in the public domain after the projects have already been initiated in practice.

Learning from best practices

Mumbai’s consultants and planners are quick to pick “best practices” for flood mitigation from other cities, but leave out the more important aspects of planning and governance underlying their implementation.

Rotterdam from the Netherlands and Denmark’s Copenhagen are cities known for their integrated approaches to flood management. However, what works well in other cities cannot, by default, work the same way in Mumbai.

For example, in the Netherlands, the Regional Water Authorities are water boards responsible for regional water management. Having the same status as a municipality, they are autonomous, yet democratically elected, fully-fledged authorities. They draw up bylaws to safeguard the maintenance and functioning of all water infrastructures.

In fact, the 2006 Chitale Committee report had recommended setting up a Mumbai Watershed Council for efficient stormwater management. But this, like most of its other recommendations, was completely ignored.

We must dismantle the notion that engineers and planners know best what is to be done for Mumbai’s drainage. The resolution of the problem demands expertise from many others like hydrologists, geologists, geographers, sociologists, landscape architects, botanists, conservationists, and more importantly, citizens. Public funds ought to be used through public participation, deliberation and debate.

Although the integrated masterplan proposes “AI powered smart drains” and tech-based flood monitoring, a considerable portion of effective flood management mandates seemingly mundane actions: regular inspection, maintenance and cleaning of drains, accurately recording neighbourhood level rainfall and runoff, careful pruning of trees, clearing invasive vegetation from waterbodies and building proper retaining walls on sloping lands.

Adding to these, the provision of low-tech solutions such as constructing networks of basic drains, culverts, recharge pits and sewers across informal neighbourhoods. Bringing informal settlements under the purview of the BRIMSTOWAD would prove to be a far more effective strategy for saving people’s homes and lives, instead of bulldozing poorer neighbourhoods to enable river rejuvenation projects or blue-green infrastructure.

Lekha Samant is an urban planner and researcher from Mumbai, currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

The Delhi Development Authority has restricted entry to its parks after sunset as part of new safety measures, two days after a 17-year-old girl was gang raped allegedly by three men posing as police personnel in a park near Kalkaji temple, PTI reported on Wednesday.

On Monday night, the girl and her 17-year-old male friend were accosted by the three accused persons at Astha Kunj Park, which is maintained by the Delhi Development Authority. Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern Range) Vijay Kumar said the accused used “legal terminology to intimidate the two telling them that they…had done something wrong and could face a case”.

“The trio then separated the girl by taking her to a secluded spot while restraining the boy and sexually assaulted the girl,” he added.

A first information case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to gang rape of a child, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt and aggravated criminal intimidation. It also invoked sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

All three accused in the case – Asif (31), Hemanth (31) and his brother Mukesh (24) – have been arrested.

The incident triggered concerns over safety arrangements in public parks in the national capital. After a meeting with Delhi Lieutenant General Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the development authority officials said that a safety audit of all parks will be conducted within a week, PTI reported.

Meanwhile, the authority has directed increased security during evening hours, restricted access to parks after sunset and surveillance cameras at entry gates.

“Additional security personnel will be deployed at vulnerable entry points and poorly lit locations based on risk assessments”, PTI quoted the officials as saying. “Where necessary, trained security personnel will also be considered.”

The development authority also said that it would install additional lighting, floodlights and other illumination in areas identified as “dark spots”.

The Delhi Development Authority manages over 16,000 acres of green assets, including 675 parks, biodiversity zones, city forests, regional parks and neighbourhood gardens.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

A 17-year-old girl was gang raped allegedly by three men who posed as police personnel at a park near Kalkaji temple in southeast Delhi on Monday night, The Hindu reported.

Her 17-year-old male friend was also allegedly assaulted.

The accused were identified as Asif (31) an onion wholesaler, Hemanth (31) who claims to be an advocate practising at Saket court, and his brother Mukesh (24), a Bachelor of Science student from Haryana. All three were arrested, the police said.

Asif was shot in the right leg on Tuesday morning after he allegedly fired at a police team that tried to intercept him The New Indian Express quoted the police as saying.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern Range) Vijay Kumar told The Hindu that that the accused persons had approached the minor girl and her male friend at the park and used “legal terminology to intimidate the two telling them that they…had done something wrong and could face a case”.

“The trio then separated the girl by taking her to a secluded spot while restraining the boy and sexually assaulted the girl,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

A first information case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to gang rape of a child, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt and aggravated criminal intimidation. It also invoked sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

DU college shifts classes online after gang rape

Following the incident, Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College for Women cancelled regular classes on Tuesday and shifted them online for Wednesday, the Hindustan Times quoted the principal as saying. The gang rape took place at a park near the college’s back gate.

The decision also came after the exchange of fire between the police and a suspect at a location which is about 50 metres from the back gate, The Hindu reported.

The college administration has also advised students, faculty and staff to avoid gathering near the back gate area. It also sought increased police patrolling around the campus.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Bihar minor harassment case: Main accused shot in leg ‘while fleeing’, arrested

A Delhi court on Wednesday granted default bail to six Ukrainians who were arrested by the National Investigation Agency in March for allegedly having links to ethnic armed groups in Myanmar that are hostile to India, PTI reported.

Default bail is granted when an investigating agency fails to complete its probe and file a chargesheet within the statutory period while an accused is in custody.

On Friday, the court granted default bail to Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, a United States citizen who is also accused in the case.

The seven foreigners were allegedly involved in supplying weapons and military equipment to ethnic armed groups operating in Myanmar, as well as providing them with training.

On September 8, the NIA filed a chargesheet against them for illegally entering, staying and moving in India under the 2025 Immigration and Foreigners Act.

Although they had been arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the agency had only accused them of immigration violations in the chargesheet.

Special NIA Judge Prashant Sharma on Wednesday discharged the six Ukrainians under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, noting that the Foreigners Regional Registration Office had compounded the offences against them by imposing a fine of Rs 5.5 lakh on each, reported PTI.

Compounding of offences is a legal settlement mechanism where an accused person pays a specific sum of money to the authorities to avoid criminal prosecution.

The six persons were granted bail against a cash bond of Rs 1 lakh each.

Van Dyke had been arrested on March 13 at Kolkata airport. On the same day, Ukrainian citizens Petro Hurba, Taras Slyviak and Ivan Sukmanovskyi were arrested at Lucknow airport, while Marian Stefankiv, Maksim Honcharuk and Viktor Kaminskyi were held at Delhi airport.

Investigators had alleged that they had entered India on valid visas, but later travelled to Mizoram without the mandatory restricted area permit. They were also accused of entering Myanmar and meeting ethnic groups hostile to India.

Officials alleged that the individuals received drone deliveries from Europe while in Mizoram.

Edited by Sneha.

The Jammu and Kashmir government told the Assembly on Tuesday that it had screened about 21.8 lakh books and withdrawn 4,812 of them from the libraries of state-run and private colleges in the Union Territory since July, The Hindu reported.

More than 12.4 lakh books had been screened in the Kashmir division and 9.3 lakh in Jammu to ensure that they do not contain “inappropriate or objectionable content”.

Of the books that were withdrawn, 518 had been banned, the newspaper quoted the government as saying.

More than 1,750 books were referred to the director of the government’s colleges department for further examination.

A government order in July had said that any material that may violate religious sentiments, was against the law or had the potential to harm national interest, should be identified, The Hindu reported.

The government stated that it had adopted “clear and objective criteria” to identify allegedly objectionable material available in colleges.

It told the Assembly that the books were screened as colleges are “expected to foster an environment that upholds constitutional values, academic freedom, critical thinking, scientific temper, responsible citizenship and respect for the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.

The government was responding to an Opposition MLA’s question about whether there was an objective criterion for identifying allegedly objectionable material available in higher education institutes.

The July directive came days after the Bharatiya Janata Party protested against the procurement of certain books by government schools, accusing the Union Territory’s National Conference government of promoting “academic jihad”.

The protests followed the withdrawal of two books from school libraries and the suspension of eight officials and termination of a contractual employee over the inclusion of what the government described as “pro-separatist content” in the books.

The withdrawn books, Personalities and Legends of J&K by Hilal Ahmed and Santosh Meena, and Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir by Dr Sushant Giri, were supplied to school libraries under the Samagra Shiksha programme for higher secondary classes.

Earlier in August 2025, the Jammu and Kashmir Home Department had banned 25 books, including works by author and activist Arundhati Roy and former Supreme Court lawyer and constitutional expert AG Noorani.

The department, headed by Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, claimed that the books were “forfeited” for allegedly promoting false narratives and inciting secessionism.

The action had been taken under the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita section that authorises the police to seize copies of the books.

Two days after the ban, the police in the Union Territory carried out searches in several districts to confiscate the prohibited titles.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Jammu University orders audit of books on campus for ‘separatist’ content