Crowd swells at Jantar Mantar after Sonam Wangchuk's removal; students maintain overnight vigil
Abhijeet Dipke begins hunger strike; Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad visits at 2am
Delhi High Court refuses interim relief to Wangchuk's wife seeking his discharge from hospital
Protesters plan Monday march to Parliament as Monsoon Session opens; Wangchuk calls it "second freedom movement"
A day after Sonam Wangchuk was taken away by Delhi Police, Jantar Mantar witnessed its biggest turnout since the protest began. What started as a movement driven largely by Gen Z students has, over the past 24 hours, drawn people across age groups and backgrounds, with Sunday’s crowd spilling well beyond the barricades and the enclosure behind the stage where students continue their hunger strike.
Sunday brought out numbers the site had not seen in the previous three weeks of the agitation. Police presence was correspondingly heavy, with barricades reinforced through the day. Protesters, however, had also organised themselves. Human chains formed around the stage as dawn broke, with students and volunteers linking arms in tight rings around the enclosure where those on hunger strike remained. The vigil was driven by fears that Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke, who began his own indefinite hunger strike a day earlier, could be detained next, and that the remaining students would be removed the way Wangchuk was.
The protesters had barely slept through the night, keeping vigil over Dipke and the fasting students as hundreds remained at Jantar Mantar through the night. At around 2 am, the Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad arrived at the site and stayed until 6 am.
"We haven't slept for days now, and we really want tomorrow's march to be a success," said Ramandeep Singh, one of the volunteers coordinating the vigil. "While we are glad to see such massive crowds join the protest, we are also alert and cautious because we don't want anything untoward to happen or any miscreants to creep in. We have people from across the country ready to join us tomorrow."
We Want This Protest to Remain Peaceful’
In the afternoon, Dipke stepped out to address the crowd gathered outside the enclosure, which had filled to capacity.
“I want this protest to remain peaceful because that is what it has been for the past month," he told the cheering crowd, which repeatedly broke into chants of Inquilab Zindabad. "We want all of you to join us for the march tomorrow."
Among those who visited the site during the day was Delhi AAP president Saurabh Bhardwaj, along with several political leaders and civil society members. Speaking to Outlook, Bhardwaj contrasted the agitation with the Anna Hazare movement of over a decade ago, arguing that this protest had grown despite receiving little attention from mainstream television, relying instead on the reach students built through social media.
"What are these students demanding? All they want is to be heard," he said. "They come here, raise slogans and go home, and yet so many conspiracy theories have been attached to this movement."
Throughout the day, knots of protesters kept a dafligoing near the barricades, the beat pulling in passers-by who stopped to clap along, while groups scattered across the site broke into protest songs and slogans between speeches from the stage.
Many first-time protesters said Saturday's images of Wangchuk being lifted from the stage before dawn had compelled them to join.
Among Sunday's first-time visitors were students Tasha and Pavni, who said they had come after hearing about Wangchuk being taken away.
"We took permission from our families because we wanted to be here. They are fighting for students. We felt it was our duty to stand here," they said.
No Immediate Relief for Wangchuk’s Family
Gitanjali J. Angmo, wife of Wangchuk, who remains admitted at Safdarjung Hospital, said on Sunday morning that she had lost faith in the hospital, alleging it had omitted his falling potassium level from its public health bulletin despite informing the family separately of a reading of 2.9, which she said doctors had described as alarming and life-threatening.
She said an independent laboratory test had returned a reading of 3.5, within the normal range, and accused the hospital of denying the family both a second medical opinion and access to his blood sample.
Angmo also alleged that nearly 30 police personnel had been stationed on Wangchuk’s hospital floor, with more than 100 deployed across the premises, restricting movement for those accompanying him. She described the arrangement as "illegal detention" rather than medical care.
On Sunday morning, Angmo moved the Delhi High Court seeking Wangchuk's immediate discharge and transfer to a private hospital of the family's choice. The plea also sought unrestricted access for his lawyers and doctors and a direction restraining the hospital from administering any treatment without his or his family's consent.
The court held a special Sunday sitting but declined to grant interim relief, observing that the government's decision to shift Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar to Safdarjung Hospital could not, at this stage, be termed arbitrary.
In a handwritten note shared through his wife a day earlier, Wangchuk described his removal from Jantar Mantar as illegal and called Monday's planned march to Parliament India's "second freedom movement", linking "freedom from injustice" to the alleged NEET-UG paper leak and "freedom from fear" to what he described as his illegal detention.
A Student Protest Finds Wider Support
The demonstration at Jantar Mantar has continued since June 20 under the leadership of the CJP, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the dismantling of the National Testing Agency over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG examination.
Wangchuk joined the protest with an indefinite hunger strike on June 28 that lasted 21 days before Delhi Police shifted him to hospital before dawn on Saturday, citing a Delhi High Court order and his deteriorating health.
His fast had already drawn widening political support, with AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose, Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav and Pawan Khera from Congress among those criticising Saturday's police action.
By evening, the crowd showed little sign of thinning. With Dipke's march to Parliament scheduled for Monday, the opening day of the Monsoon Session, students settled in for another night of vigil, their eyes fixed on the barricades even as chants continued to echo across Jantar Mantar.
