On July 25, Bulet Kumar Gond had gone to the district magistrate office in Bihar’s Siwan town to get his caste and residence certificates made.

That day, the All India Students’ Association or AISA had called for a Bihar bandh to protest against a police lathicharge on students in Patna three days ago.

The students in the Bihar capital had been demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, as part of a nationwide agitation called by the satirical outfit Cockroach Janta Party.

In Siwan, hundreds of students had joined the AISA protest, leading to clashes with the police in several areas.

Gond, a 20-year-old from Dumrahar Bujurg village, 40 km from the Siwan district headquarters, ended up getting caught in one.

On the way to the district magistrate office, Gond recalls that the police and the students had faced off against each other. “Bricks and stones were being pelted from the police’s side as well as from the students' side,” he said.

As he saw many others skirt the protest and head for the government office, Gond followed their lead. “No one was getting hurt or harmed there,” he said. “I thought let me pass from the side to do my work.”

But just as he tried to walk past a few vendors, a bullet hit his leg. “I fell down right there,” he told Scroll.

Gond was one of three students shot in Siwan that day, as the Bihar police cracked down on youth protests that had erupted across the state in support of the Cockroach Janta Party campaign.

Gond was not just injured by a bullet. As he fell on the ground, he alleged that he was brutally beaten up by the police. Despite his pleas for medical help, he was made to walk on one leg to the police station, where he lay writhing for almost an hour before he was taken to a hospital, he told Scroll.

We also spoke to a second victim of police firing in Siwan, a bystander shot in the neck. “The police opened fire suddenly without any reason and provocation,” Akash Yadav, a 21-year-old from Uttar Pradesh, said. “I could have been hit in the head. Anyone could have been killed.”

On Monday, the Bihar Police said it had registered three first information reports over the firing that left the three young men injured during protests in Siwan.

The police crackdown on student protests in Bihar has been remarkably harsh, with a constable firing an AK-47 assault rifle at JP Chowk in Siwan. Following countrywide outrage, the constable was suspended.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha has moved the Supreme Court seeking that first information reports be reigstered against police officers who opened fire at protesters in Bihar.

Beatings after bullet

Moments after the bullet hit Gond’s leg, he told Scroll, the police “came running” towards him.

A friend tried to lift him. “But I couldn't get up, my leg started giving way,” he told Scroll.

With a great effort, his friend made him sit and tied a cloth around his bleeding leg. “By then, the police had reached us,” he said.

Immediately, they started beating both of them with fibre-glass canes.

“I said, ‘Sir, I have been shot.’ My friend said, ‘Sir, he has been shot’,” Gond said. “But they did not stop. They just kept beating us continuously.”

After a few minutes, Gond’s friend ran away. The police then ordered the injured young man to walk to the police station. Gond said he kept telling the police that he had been shot and could not walk.

“One of them grabbed one of my hands and said, ‘You will walk just like this, on one leg. Let’s see how you won't,’” Gond said.

As another baton hit him, Gond stood up somehow on one leg. “For about 100-150 meters, I hopped on one leg.”

Once at the police station, Gond said he lay down in pain. “I could not sit properly, I kept asking them to take me to the hospital. I was screaming for water, writhing in pain, my leg was bleeding badly, but no one was listening to me.”

One of the police officials even told him: “You will stay here for an hour, only then will you go to the hospital.”

After about 45-50 minutes of this ordeal, an ambulance was called. Gond was taken to the Sadar Hospital in Siwan, which referred him to a private hospital in Patna.

On Monday, as Gond lay in the hospital bed waiting for a surgery, he was disconsolate. “I am worried,” he said. “Will I be able to walk again?”

‘They opened fire without warning’

On Saturday afternoon, Akash Yadav had stepped out to buy cake in Siwan.

The 21-year-old had just arrived in Siwan from Delhi to be with his fiancee and celebrate his birthday.

“The protests were going on and I went outside,” Yadav told Scroll from his hospital bed in Patna.

He said he saw several young men out on the streets in protest. Five or six police personnel were watching them.

“The police did not stop me from moving forward,” he said. “So I kept walking. I saw them dragging and beating up the boys.”

The police action agitated the protestors and clashes broke out, Yadav said.

“Immediately, without a warning, the police opened fire,” he said. “They did not fire to scare the protestors away. I saw a policeman aim at protestors and fire a pistol. One of the bullets hit my neck and passed through it.”

Yadav demanded action against the police officer who injured him. “I want the administration to take action against him. I can identify the person,” he said. “I even have a video of the police from that day.”

He countered the statement of the Siwan superintendent of police, who had claimed that no one had been injured in the police firing. “Are we in the hospital for nothing?” Yadav asked. “They have not even carried out a proper inquiry. They did not mention anywhere that I was hit by the pistol.’

‘It was brutal’

According to a statement by the Bihar police, 694 people were taken into custody across the state on Saturday for taking part in the protests. Of them, 339 were minors.

Scroll spoke to a __15-year-old __who was thrashed badly by the police during the student protests at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on July 25. The video of his assault went viral on social media.

On July 25, Medhansh had walked 3 km from his home to Patna’s Gandhi Maidan to join other students who had responded to AISA’s call for protest.

“I had no money, so I walked,” the Class 10 student told Scroll. “I went because it is a cause I want to support, because [this is] going to affect my future too.”

Medhansh had attended a protest in support of the Cockroach Janta Party on July 22 as well.

On Saturday, he fashioned a wig for himself to protect his head and joined the protestors near Gandhi Maidan.

“They were just screaming and chanting slogans,” he said

But after some time, both protestors and the police began throwing stones at each other. The police released tear gas to control the crowd.

Medhansh and other students dispersed and ran into another lane. As the situation seemed to calm down, Medhansh started to talk with a reporter.

In the middle of his interview, he said, a big posse of police officers arrived. “I ran instantly. I turned the corner, and jumped over a fence. But there was another group of police officers in front. I was surrounded.”

Medhansh said that at least 13 or 14 police officials began raining blows on him. “They weren't only using lathis, they also were using pieces of wood,” he said. “I ran, but they hit me even while I tried to run away.”

After a while, the police gave up the chase.

But Medhansh was left with several bruises – on his arms and legs and one eye.

Medhansh criticised the police for hitting teenagers and children, instead of detaining them. “How can you lathi charge innocent teenagers and children?” he asked. “That, too, with fibre canes. It’s genuinely brutal.”

He said the police should have used other methods of restraint. “At least, that will not put your life in danger,” he said.

Varuni Poorba, national president of Disha Students’ Organisation, one of the groups that had called for the July 25 protest, claimed that the police used excessive force and even filed false cases against activists mobilising the students.

“In Patna, more arrests were made but the police brutality was mainly in districts like Siwan, Bhagalpur and Jahanabad, among others,” Poorba said.

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