Two dozen independent United Nations experts have called on the Indian government to immediately stop the use of "excessive force" against protesters and to order an independent investigation into the authorities' conduct during a recent crackdown on demonstrations in the national capital and elsewhere.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the experts pressed New Delhi to "immediately cease the use of excessive force, rescind blanket assembly bans, and refrain from the misuse of digital surveillance, including through biometrics, and internet disruptions." They said demonstrators had sustained injuries during the protests, with some reporting that they had been subjected to ill-treatment in custody.
The experts expressed particular concern about reports of sexual violence and other forms of gender-based abuse during the protests and related detentions. They said the crackdown reflected "a broader, troubling pattern" and added that they had alerted the Indian authorities to "undue restrictions on peaceful assembly, excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and the targeting of student activists, amongst others."
"Despite the non-violent nature of the assemblies, law enforcement agencies have reportedly deployed force against unarmed students, including lathi charges, and have prevented thousands from joining the protests," the experts said, referring to the coordinated use of police batons to disperse crowds.
The statement is the second such intervention by UN human rights experts in a month. Earlier in October, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about reports of "mass detentions" at protests in Delhi, a statement the Indian government rejected. The UN experts are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and document specific human rights crises but are independent of the organisation itself.
The protests at the centre of the controversy have been led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), along with other opposition parties and student organisations. The demonstrators are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a special intensive revision (SIR) of voter lists, under which 130 million names were removed from the rolls.
The protesting groups allege that the revision disproportionately affected poor and homeless people as well as ethnic minorities, including Muslims, who are less likely to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP and the Election Commission deny the accusations. The Commission says it was removing duplicate, deceased, shifted and otherwise ineligible voters, and that anyone excluded in error can pursue appeals through the established process.
The experts' statement referred both to the ongoing agitation against the Election Commission and to the CJP-led protests against the NEET paper leak in July, which triggered mass demonstrations over the summer and led to the resignation of the country's education minister.
In the current round of protests, thousands of demonstrators were detained by police in the national capital on October 10, 11 and 12, including journalists, members of youth organisations and minors, according to The Hindu.
On October 16, CJP supporters holding national flags scuffled with security personnel during a protest at Connaught Place in New Delhi, demanding the Chief Election Commissioner's resignation over alleged voter-roll irregularities linked to the special intensive revision. Photographs from the scene showed police detaining demonstrators.
The UN experts also pointed to the detention of journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers and members of political parties during the protests, and criticised the deletion of "protest-related material" from their devices. They urged India to ensure justice for human rights violations reported during these and previous protests and to protect the right to peaceful assembly.
India has repeatedly dismissed such criticism and cast it as interference in the country's internal affairs. The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the experts' statement. The Indian government said earlier this month that the country's law enforcement had acted "strictly in accordance with the law."
The controversy comes amid a charged political atmosphere in the capital. On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court is hearing a plea by CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka against the extension of their judicial custody, a case that has kept the opposition party's confrontation with the authorities in the headlines.
The special intensive revision of electoral rolls has been one of the most contentious political issues of the year. Opposition parties have alleged large-scale disenfranchisement, while the Election Commission has maintained that the exercise was a routine administrative clean-up.
The revision, whose final lists were published in August, placed lakhs of voters in categories such as "permanently shifted," and opposition groups say the burden of proving eligibility fell hardest on those least able to bear it — the poor, the homeless and migrant workers.
Human rights observers say the UN experts' statement adds international pressure on New Delhi at a sensitive moment, though past experience suggests the government is unlikely to change course in response. India has consistently maintained that its internal law-and-order matters are not subject to external review, and officials have previously described similar statements as based on incomplete or unverified information.
The UN human rights office's earlier expression of concern this month was dismissed in the same terms.
The experts, for their part, framed their intervention as part of their standing mandate rather than a political judgement. Appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, they monitor specific human rights situations independently of the United Nations itself, and their statements carry moral rather than legal weight. Their demand for an independent investigation echoes similar calls made after previous episodes of protest policing in India, which likewise went unheeded.
For now, the experts' demands — an independent investigation, an end to blanket assembly bans, and curbs on digital surveillance — set out a clear benchmark against which the government's handling of the protests will be judged, both at home and abroad. Whether New Delhi engages with the statement or dismisses it as interference, the episode ensures that the policing of India's protest movement will remain under international scrutiny in the weeks and months ahead.
(Reporting based on Al Jazeera, Reuters and The Hindu.)