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The following is the full text of an open letter from the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) on police brutality in Delhi on July 20, 2026, addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Lieutenant Governor of NCT of Delhi Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, Anurag Kumar. The open letter was prompted by the Delhi Police’s handling of the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ student protest, alleging excessive force – including pellet guns, tasers, tear gas and lathi charges – against demonstrators demanding examination reforms and accountability over recurring exam scandals.

The CCG is a group of citizens who have served at apex levels of government and governance who wish to highlight the situation on the ground to all Indians. Its latest statement is an urgent call for accountability and dialogue.

Among the prominent signatories are former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, former foreign secretary and national security adviser Shivshankar Menon, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa, former Jammu and Kashmir interlocutor and ex-RAW chief A.S. Dulat, former foreign secretary Sujatha Singh, former IAS officer and rights activist Aruna Roy, former IAS officer and activist Harsh Mander, and former Punjab DGP Julio Ribeiro, along with several retired secretaries to the Government of India, ambassadors, police chiefs and chief secretaries. Below is the text of the open letter. 

1. We, the members of the Constitutional Conduct Group, a collective of former civil servants belonging to the All India Services and the Central Services with no political affiliation and committed to the promotion of the foundational values of our Republic and the observance of norms of Constitutional conduct, are deeply shocked and greatly anguished by the brutal police action against peaceful student protesters ventilating legitimate nationwide grievances, during and after the Sansad Chalo march in Delhi on 20 July 2026.

2. Reports indicate that the Delhi Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel used pellet guns, electrical batons (tasers) and tear gas against demonstrators resulting in serious injuries to several youth, including to a young protester, who required surgery to remove pellets from near his eye and neck. A 15-year-old child was among those injured and hospitalised.

Disturbing visuals also show several policemen and RAF personnel, some with no name tags, and plainclothes men and policemen in civilian attire, mercilessly lashing out at protesters, including young women, with lathis, in some cases embedded with nails; sexual misbehaviour by at least one policeman who should be identified and given exemplary punishment; the suspicious parking of a truck filled with stones despite strict checking in a high-security area and stone-throwing by policemen; and the questionable rounding up and movement of protesters from police station to police station without access to lawyers.

This may well be the first time that such force has been used against unarmed young protestors agitating for their legitimate right of education and work on such a scale anywhere in India.

3. Even more alarming were visuals of armed police with guns trained at the gates of Parliament in case the march reached there. Orders were issued on July 23 to close down offices and shops in central Delhi on top of  disruptions in mass transport and metro services to make it difficult for citizens to reach the protest site, and to shut down internet services.

Facial Recognition Vans were deployed to live-scan peaceful protesters, constituting a violation of the citizen’s fundamental right to privacy, enunciated by the Supreme Court in the Puttaswamy case, which could be weaponised as tools of intimidation and suppression of fundamental rights. Most worrying are orders and visuals deploying CRPF in riot gear to the protest sites.

4. Such use of illegal and disproportionate force in the national capital against young citizens exercising their........

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