The Protest Is Over, But the Police Cases Are Just Starting

For 36 days, students camped out at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, demanding answers over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG entrance exam. The group behind it, calling itself the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), packed up its sit-in after the central government promised something simple in return: no criminal cases against anyone who took part.

That promise didn't hold up everywhere.

What the protest was about

The CJP formed after India's Chief Justice compared government critics to cockroaches, and the name stuck as a kind of protest badge. Students rallied around one core demand at first: Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over the exam paper leak. More demands followed as the protest grew, and at its peak, thousands marched on Parliament Street, leading to clashes with police, tear gas, and lathi charges that left over a hundred people injured.

Eventually, talks between CJP representatives and the central government produced an agreement. Protesters would go home. In exchange, every FIR (First Information Report, the police document that opens a criminal case in India) filed against a protester or organiser anywhere in the country would be withdrawn, and no new cases would be filed against anyone for taking part.

Where it went wrong

Almost as soon as the sit-in ended, police in a handful of BJP-run states started booking protesters anyway. Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam saw the bulk of these cases, and the charges weren't minor — some protesters were booked on attempt-to-murder charges.

In West Bengal, police went further and invoked the state's Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Act, commonly called the Goonda Act, against a group of individuals. That law allows for preventive detention of people the state considers a public safety risk, which is a much heavier tool than a standard criminal case.

The CJP said this was a direct breach of what had been agreed during the talks, and warned it would restart the protest nationwide if the government didn't confirm the withdrawal of cases in writing.

The walk-back

That warning seems to have worked, at least partially. Within hours of the CJP's ultimatum, the Bihar and Assam governments issued formal notices agreeing to drop all FIRs tied to the protests and release anyone detained before a set cutoff time on July 26. Bihar's order specifically stated that no punitive or retaliatory action would be taken against anyone who'd joined the protests before that cutoff, and that the process of withdrawing FIRs would start right away.

Assam's home department confirmed it had registered five cases and arrested 13 people in connection with the protests, all of whom were included in the release order.

West Bengal is the outlier. As of this writing, the state government hasn't issued a matching notification, even though reports suggest a similar move could follow.

Why this matters beyond the protest itself

This isn't just a dispute over paperwork. It goes to a basic question: what happens when a government makes a public promise to protesters and then the promise isn't kept at the state level, especially when the centre and the states involved are run by the same party?

Opposition leaders have used the episode to accuse the government of bad faith. Government representatives, for their part, have framed the individual state actions as separate from the central agreement, something local police forces did on their own rather than a coordinated breach.

Either way, for the students and organisers who were arrested, the distinction between "central promise" and "state action" probably feels academic. They were the ones sitting in a police lock-up while the two sides sorted out who was responsible.

What to watch next

A few things are still unresolved:

• Whether West Bengal follows Bihar and Assam in formally dropping cases

• Whether any protesters remain in detention past the promised cutoff

• Whether the CJP considers the matter closed or decides the response wasn't enough

The protest itself may be over, but for a number of students, the legal consequences of joining it are still being worked out — case by case, state by state.