Following the success of the newly formed Cockroach Janta Party’s July 2026 anti-NEET protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, the state embarked on warlike preparations on the eve of the October protests. The October 10, 2026, people’s protest- jointly called by the CJP, political pressure groups, rights organisations and student groups demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, and challenging the SIR illegalities, including the striking off 13 crore voters from the electoral rolls- was deemed illegal. A state of undeclared emergency prevailed that day as the national capital, especially New Delhi district, was turned into a fortress. Over the years, the right to peaceful protest, guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution, has steadily been curtailed by court orders and executive decisions, and public protests sites have also shrunk to “designated areas”. But what happened in Delhi October 10, 2026, went far beyond the routine barricading of peaceful protests.

The protest site at Jantar Mantar itself was inaccessible, and citizens faced an acute violation of every kind of freedom- restrictions on movement and on speech, a blockade of information and communication, and forcible shutdowns of shops across central Delhi that struck at people’s right to carry on their trade and profession. The guarantee of fundamental freedoms was reduced to a complete mockery. And this was only the preparation. As the day unfolded, the capital witnessed a brazen spree of state lawlessness, with beatings, mass detentions, sexual harassment, and the open collusion of the police with armed right-wing groups. If all this is not fundamentally interrogated, and worse, if it is normalised, the right to protest will practically cease to exist. PUDR therefore raises the following concerns.

Measure taken to unleash an undeclared emergency on Delhi

The measures taken in the run-up to and on October 10, 2026, were wholly disproportionate to a peaceful march by unarmed citizens-

• Over 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel, drawn from the Delhi Police, CRPF, CAPF, ITBP and RAF among others, were deployed across the city.
• 45 metro stations were shut. DMRC had initially announced the closure of 57 stations; as an orchestrated move, the number was reduced to 45 after the Supreme Court was made to intervene.
• Over 270 trains to and from Delhi were cancelled or disrupted by the Railway Ministry.
• Major roads across the capital were barricaded. People were stopped at Delhi’s borders and on highways and made to account for and prove where they were going.
• A 24-hour internet shutdown was imposed in central Delhi without publishing the order or the recorded reasons for it, in violation of the publication requirement laid down in Anuradha Bhasin and the 2024 Suspension Rules.
• Section 163 BNSS (formerly Section 144 CrPC) has remained in force in central Delhi since 2 October 2026. The magisterial order has not been published and the Delhi Police instead posted a notice on Facebook.
• At many locations in Delhi, especially in the university areas, police directed landlords and wardens of private accommodations and hostels to restrain students from participating in the march.

All of this was done in the name of order and security. The police claimed that the organisers did not give the 10 days’ notice supposedly required. This has become the routine excuse for denying any space for peaceful protest, alongside prohibitory orders that remain in force across most of Delhi throughout the year. The real question is why the right to peaceful protest should be subject to such restrictions at all. A peaceful protest cannot, by itself, be framed as a threat to public order. Treating it as one, and criminalising it in so explicit a manner, is the doing of a police state, not a democracy.

Police arbitrariness in complicity with right-wing mobs

As the day unfolded, the violations escalated from restriction to open assault, carried out by the police in active collusion with right-wing groups.

• Violence and mass detentions. Police personnel, many without name tags so that they could not be identified, beat unarmed, peaceful protestors in the streets. The beatings continued in buses, in freshly designated far-flung ‘detention centres’ and in police stations. Protestors were detained en masse and taken away in vehicles to locations that were not disclosed to them or their families. Many were held until late into the night. Security forces entered shops, markets and gurudwaras to profile ‘protestors’ and drag them out. Those on the streets were kept under surveillance.
• Sexual harassment of women protestors. Women protesters were harassed, chased, groped, and abused by the police and by the right-wing groups operating alongside them. Such violence is meant to humiliate and intimidate women out of public and political life. It was committed by those in uniform, or under their watch, against citizens in their custody or within their reach. It was not an excess of the moment but a weapon of the crackdown, and it demands immediate and independent investigation.
• Collusion with armed right-wing groups. Through the day, Right-wing groups moved freely across central Delhi armed with lathis and knuckle-dusters. A city sealed off to peaceful citizens lay open to them. They colluded with the police and attacked and harassed protestors, and their slogans announced the collaboration: “Dilli police tum lath bajao, hum tumhare saath hai!” (Delhi Police, beat them with sticks, we stand with you!). The police and these groups acted in unison. Protestors were assaulted and detained, while attackers walked free.

Supreme Court’s order offers minimal to no guarantee to fundamental freedoms

On 11 October, at a special Sunday hearing, the Supreme Court took up petitions against the metro and train closures, which had continued despite its own order of 9 October, and against the mass detention of protestors and political leaders, but offered no robust safeguards in this regard. In stating the obvious, the Court said that all rights will be guaranteed subject to law and order situation, traffic regulations and reasonable restriction. With the sole exception that the internet facilities will remain unhindered, every direction concerning citizens is hedged. Decisions on how freedoms are to be guaranteed have been handed straight back to the very authorities who imposed the curbs in the first place.

The direction on detention is the most troubling. The order stated that “there shall be no illegal detention, particularly in cases of peaceful unarmed assemblage of people beyond the area where Section 163 BNSS is in operation.” What does the court have to say about areas in which S. 163 BNSS applies, which currently includes almost all parts of central Delhi? The Court’s poorly chosen words, “no illegal detention beyond the area where S. 163 BNSS is in operation”, suggest that the police has blanket powers within the area of operation of S. 163. The order thus leaves the police free to continue detaining peaceful protestors where it mattered most. Leaving it to the police and the administration to decide what counts as “peaceful” protest and giving them the power to label one as “illegal”, is a serious affront to the democratic right to dissent.

Detentions continued into 11 October after the Court lifted the curbs

Even after the Supreme Court directed that there be no illegal detention of peaceful, unarmed assemblies, detentions continued into the following day, October 11, 2026. The Court’s own wording, confining its prohibition “particularly” to areas beyond the Section 163 BNSS zone, gave the police the room they needed. The situation has unfolded in such a manner that the police force feels no accountability either to the public or to judicial institutions. That impunity extends to the BJP-RSS-affiliated groups who attacked protestors without any intervention by the police.

Who inconvenienced the public?

From October 10, 2026 onwards, “public convenience” has been invoked to justify curbs on where protests may be held and for how long, making the police the arbiters of who gets permission to protest and who does not. But it was not the protestors who shut 45 metro stations. It was not the protestors who cancelled or disrupted over 270 trains, barricaded the capital’s roads, stopped people on highways, or cut off the internet across central Delhi. It was the government. Commuters, workers, students, patients and travellers were stranded by the state’s own decisions. The public was inconvenienced most severely, and its rights infringed most gravely, by the very authorities claiming to protect its convenience.

Barricading Public Protests

On October 12, 2026, the MHA revoked Jantar Mantar as a “designated site”. Now onwards, public protests can be held either at Ramlila Maidan, Burari Grounds and at the CBD Grounds, distant from the seat of power and vastly inaccessible. By banning protest from the very spaces where the political establishment conducts its business, and where voices of dissent matter most, this latest circular seeks to prevent people from exercising their rights to peacefully protest, debate, disseminate ideas and influence public opinion in public spaces. In designating areas, barricading and permitting protests based on police verifications, the government’s aim is to hollow out the fundamental right to protest.

PUDR Demands

1. An immediate end to the reign of indiscriminate detentions that the police has embarked on since October 10, 2026.
2. The withdrawal of S.163 BNSS order in central Delhi, and publication of all prohibitory and internet suspension orders along with their recorded reasons.
3. An independent inquiry into police violence and the sexual harassment of women protestors, and action against personnel who operated without name tags.
4. Registration of FIRs against the right-wing groups who attacked protestors, and accountability for the police officers who enabled them.
5. Restoration of people’s constitutional right to peaceful protest, and revocation of the unconstitutional notion of “illegal protest”.

Shahana Bhattacharya & Deepika Tandon

Secretaries, PUDR