A 19-year-old student involved in the recent nationwide protests over the high-profile paper leak controversy related to the NEET-UG 2026 exams, who had joined the recently-held protests, was beaten by four masked men near BEL Circle in Bengaluru’s Jalahalli region on Thursday night. Students activist networks and local authorities, including the police, were quick to respond to the violence and safety of student leaders involved in political and educational protests.
The victim’s official police complaint said the attack took place during his walk after dinner. Four unknown men came on a motorcycle and verbally abused him, asking him if he wanted Modi to resign because he was a politician. The attackers hit him on the leg with a heavy wooden log and fled the scene into the night, causing the young activist to be seriously injured. The victim belongs to a student organization and has already taken part in local solidarity rallies in Bengaluru, and he filed a first information report at Jalahalli Police Station as well as the government of Bengaluru.
This worrying local assault came in the immediate wake of historic nationwide protests by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). These gigantic protests erupted around Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and resulted in a major political shake-up with the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union Education Minister, which was the demand of the student collective. The agitation really began in late June when the CJP began mass protests over systemic paper leaks in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, with the support of climate activist Sonam Wangchuk who started a hunger strike on June 28 to push for all structural changes to the education system.
The protests intensified on July 20 when a call for a ‘Sansad Chalo’ march came at the start of Parliament’s monsoon session. Thousands of students from different parts of the country marched to the capital, past police barricades and into the steady rain to march to Parliament in the country’s biggest protest since Narendra Modi’s third consecutive term. The pressure on Pradhan to resign finally forced the government to respond and make the competitive examination system transparent. The incident is just the latest manifestation of the ongoing tension between the government and the students in Bengaluru, as Bengaluru police are searching for the masked attackers.
