Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday held a sit-in protest outside the Delhi deputy commissioner of police’s office demanding that a first information report be registered on a complaint by a student who was injured by pellet gun fire during the youth protest in the national capital on July 20.

The Congress said that the student, Sahil Lochav, submitted a written complaint on August 14. But the police refused to register an FIR, the party alleged.

Lochav approached the police again on August 17, but his emails and calls were ignored, the Congress alleged.

“This is blatant injustice,” the Congress said on social media.

Gandhi has repeatedly alleged that the police had used pellet guns against Lochav and other protesters when they were marching towards Parliament on July 20.

Lochav had been “severely injured by the pellets” and his “vision in one eye is now at risk”, the Congress leader has alleged.

On Friday, Gandhi once again criticised Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the police crackdown.

He asked Shah why he was “so scared of justice” and asserted that an FIR will be filed.

“A judicial inquiry will take place,” Gandhi added. “And action will be taken against everyone – from top to bottom – who is guilty of this brutality.”

The July 20 march to Parliament had been organised over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations. Thousands of protesters participated in the march. Several demonstrators were injured after the security personnel used lathis, fired tear gas and pellet guns to disperse the crowd.

The police had denied firing pellet guns at protesters. However, a Right to Information response showed that 10 people had been treated for pellet injuries at government hospitals.

The protests against alleged mismanagement of several competitive examinations had begun on June 6, when the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign staged a demonstration at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time. Pradhan resigned as the education minister on July 25.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest. This came two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital.

The police action during the Parliament march turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

On Tuesday, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju claimed that no one was seriously injured in the police action in Delhi on July 20.

Rijiju claimed: “Not a single person was harmed, not a single person suffered a broken bone. Not even one protester is in the hospital with a serious injury.”

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

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