Indian authorities have suspended a police officer after he was caught on camera firing an AK-47 assault rifle into the air to scatter student protesters in an eastern city over the weekend — the latest in a string of confrontations stemming from a nationwide wave of youth demonstrations.
Video footage uploaded to social media, which police confirmed as authentic, shows a uniformed officer in riot gear charging toward a group of protesters in Siwan, a city in the eastern state of Bihar, on Saturday. The officer can clearly be seen pointing the assault rifle at the crowd and discharging at least three rounds into the air.
A senior Bihar police official, Nilesh Kumar, confirmed that nobody was injured and explained that the constable involved belonged to an intelligence unit “which deals with dreaded, hard-core criminals” — a unit that had been issued the military-grade weapon.
“The AK-47 was used by the constable wrongly. It cannot be justified in any way,” said Kumar, who serves as deputy inspector general of police, in remarks to Reuters on Monday. “He used it wrongly, because they were students. There was no need of doing so. That is why he has been suspended. All sorts of actions will be taken against him.”
The demonstrations were originally sparked in May when exam questions for a national medical college entrance test — taken by more than 2 million students — were leaked, forcing authorities to schedule a re-test. Analysts say the protests have since grown to encompass broader frustrations, including high youth unemployment and concerns among young people that artificial intelligence could eliminate jobs in India’s well-known IT sector.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s education minister stepped down on Saturday after nearly five weeks of sustained protests by the youth Cockroach Janta Party.
The incident quickly became a flashpoint in parliament, where opposition Congress party leader Mallikarjun Kharge delivered a sharp rebuke. “It is one of the gravest assaults on democracy in our history. Never before have students been beaten, dragged, and treated like criminals for raising their voices,” Kharge declared. “In Bihar, reports indicate use of AK-47 against students. Those responsible cannot escape accountability.”
Government ministers offered no response before both chambers of parliament were adjourned amid a heated and disorderly debate over the matter.
Criticism of law enforcement’s handling of the protests has come from the highest levels of India’s judiciary as well. Supreme Court Judge Ujjal Bhuyan, in what observers noted was a rare public statement from a sitting member of the country’s top court, addressed the situation in a speech on Saturday. “It will not be an exaggeration to say that public space for expressing divergent opinion is shrinking in India,” Bhuyan said. “Right to express one’s views and to demonstrate peacefully are fundamental freedoms of the citizens.”
Earlier, on July 20, police were accused of using excessive force when tens of thousands of protesters marched toward parliament in the capital of New Delhi. Officers were reported to have beaten demonstrators with canes and deployed tear gas to push the crowds back.
