Sonam Wangchuk was taken off his hunger strike by force early Saturday morning, 21 days after he began it, as Delhi Police moved into Jantar Mantar before dawn and shifted him to Safdarjung Hospital.
Police personnel reached the protest site around 7 am, made repeated announcements asking demonstrators to clear the area, and then removed Wangchuk amid what officials called “a slight commotion” as some protesters tried to obstruct the operation. Personnel from the Rapid Action Force and CRPF, alongside Delhi Police, were deployed for the exercise.
In a statement, Delhi Police said the action was carried out in compliance with Delhi High Court directions and on the advice of medical experts, given Wangchuk’s deteriorating health. Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders, however, said Wangchuk had been “manhandled and forcefully removed,” and alleged some protesters were assaulted in the process.
Safdarjung Hospital said in its first statement that Wangchuk was admitted at 7.40 am. “He is weak due to prolonged fasting and dehydration. Although he is currently stable, he requires continuous observation, monitoring and treatment to restore his body parameters,” the hospital said. His weight had fallen to around 56.5 kg, a loss of roughly 9 kg since he stopped eating on June 28. Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, posted on X asking that nothing be administered to him, orally or intravenously, without consent from her, his family, and the doctors who had been monitoring him through the fast.
Within hours of Wangchuk’s removal, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke announced he was beginning his own indefinite hunger strike at the same spot. “Abhijeet Dipke sits on an indefinite hunger strike. The ‘Chalo Sansad’ march (March to Parliament) on 20 July will proceed as planned,” the CJP said in a post on X. The group also sharpened its demand, moving from Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation to calling for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation as well.
The events of Saturday followed several days in which political support for Wangchuk had been building. On Thursday, the Delhi High Court had directed government doctors to examine him daily and ensure timely medical intervention, after a plea warned he may not survive without breaking his fast; the court stopped short of ordering force-feeding. The same day, the Congress party broke its earlier silence on the protest, with general secretary K.C. Venugopal backing the demand for Pradhan’s resignation while appealing to Wangchuk to end his fast, even as questions grew over Rahul Gandhi’s continued absence from Jantar Mantar. Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal, visiting the site, suggested Modi replace Pradhan with Wangchuk as education minister, while Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav urged the government to show “a little sensitivity.”
Wangchuk himself had pushed back against the alarm over his condition. “My condition is not such that I will die in two-four days,” he said this week. “Many medical tests have been conducted and the results are quite normal.” In a video message to supporters before his hospitalisation, he said, “Rather than asking me to break my fast please join me on 20th July... Peaceful March to the Parliament.”
The CJP began barely two months ago as a reaction to a remark by the Chief Justice of India. On May 15, Justice Surya Kant referred during a court hearing to some unemployed young people and activists as “cockroaches” and “parasites of society.” The remark caused outrage among Indian youth already frustrated by high unemployment and a troubled examination system. Dipke, then a student in the United States, responded on social media by asking, “What if all cockroaches came together?” The post drew a huge response, and he launched the Cockroach Janta Party the next day, a satirical answer to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Within a week, its Instagram page had crossed 20 million followers.
The anger found a clear target in the NEET-UG medical entrance exam, hit by a paper leak scandal in May, adding to years of similar controversies and reports of student suicides linked to exam pressure. The CJP settled into an indefinite sit-in at Jantar Mantar from June 20, and Wangchuk, the Ladakh-based engineer and education reformer who inspired a leading character in the Bollywood film 3 Idiots, joined the fast eight days later.
On July 14, four days before Wangchuk was hospitalised, a Christian delegation had visited the protest site to express support for him and the students gathered there. The delegation included Minakshi Singh, general secretary of Unity in Christ, veteran human rights activist Dr. John Dayal, Dr. Michael Williams, President of the United Christian Forum, and Fr. Susai Sebastian, a Catholic priest from the Archdiocese of Delhi. Members of the delegation met CJP spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka at the site, and prayed for Wangchuk.
Recalling the visit, Singh said even then, Wangchuk’s health had visibly worsened. “Seeing the whole situation there was very painful,” she said. “Despite everything that had happened, our youth were so scattered and troubled, yet nowhere was anyone listening to them. So we expressed our solidarity with them... The government needs to break its silence. Given everything that has gone wrong with Dharmendra Pradhan as education minister, the government needs to act.” Dr. John Dayal also addressed the protesters gathered at the site.
Separately, a group of academics and public intellectuals wrote to Pradhan on Saturday urging him to resign. The letter, signed by historian Romila Thapar, economists Prabhat Patnaik and Utsa Patnaik, political scientists Zoya Hasan and Neera Chandoke, economist C.P. Chandrasekhar, writer and activist Harsh Mander, and John Dayal among others, said Wangchuk’s fast had put “his life, which is extremely precious for the country,” in danger, and warned that “if anything happens to them, then posterity will hold you squarely responsible for it.” It called on Pradhan to “take the honourable course and resign,” describing this as an act of owning “moral responsibility for the government’s failures.”
With Wangchuk now hospitalised and Dipke taking his place on hunger strike, the CJP’s march to Parliament remains scheduled for July 20, the opening day of the Monsoon Session.
