The editorial Page: The voice of india’s youth must be heard inside Parliament 10 THURsdAY, JUlY 23, 2026 JournalisM of Courage mumbAI, lATe cITY, 20 PAGeS ₹5.00 l www.indianexpress.com dA I lY f r o m : A h m e dA b A d , c h A N d I GA r h , d e l h I , j A I P u r , ko l k ATA , l u c k N o w , m u m b A I , N AG P u r , PAT N A , P u N e , vA d o dA r A REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 SEEKS NO LEGAL ACTION AGAINST PROTESTERS, COMPENSATION FOR NEET ASPIRANTS WHO ENDED LIVES Wangchuk opens a window for talks as Centre steps up efforts to resolve crisis CRACKDOWN By MUMBAI POLICE After Union Ministers meet him in hospital, activist says will ask students to halt protest if assurances kept Onein5named inFIRsof18-20 agegroup,every secondperson 25yrsorbelow Liz Mathew & Jatin Anand New Delhi, July 22 AS THE government stepped up efforts to defuse the situationarisingoutofstudentprotests that have paralysed the heart of the Capital, a window opened Wednesday after activist Sonam Wangchuk said he would end his fast and ask the students to “halt the movement for now and enter into a dialoguewiththegovernment” if it fulfils its assurances to him and does not press for legal action against the protesters. Wangchuk released a letter addressed to Union Ministers J P nadda and Jitendra Singh who met him Tuesday night at the Medanta Hospital in gurgaon. Without insisting on the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, he said the ministers had assured him that the government would consider providing “adequate compensation for the families of the students who had committed suicide following the examination paper leak” and “a meaningfuldiscussioninParliament to ensure accountability »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Mohamed Thaver Mumbai, July 22 Activist Sonam Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike since June 28. ANI fIle Business as Usual By EP UNNY Protesters at Sansad Marg in New Delhi on Wednesday. GAjeNdrA YAdAv Govt offers discussion in House, Opp presses for Pradhan’s resignation Manoj CG New Delhi, July 22 related reports pages 4, 7, 9, 10 THE gRiDLoCK in Parliament showed no signs of ending on Wednesday as opposition parties remained firm on their demand for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan even as the government signalled that it was readytomeetthemhalfway,reiterating its willingness to hold an elaborate discussion in the House on the paper leak issue. The opposition also reached out to activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a Opposition MPs protest in Parliament, Wednesday. PTI hunger strike since June 28, and urged him to end his fast. While the opposition is in- sisting on Pradhan’s resignation, sources said there is a »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 MoRE THAn one in five protestersnamedasaccusedbythe Mumbai Police in FiRs registeredonTuesdaywereinthe1820 age group, and every second person named was 25 or younger, police data accessed by The indian Express shows. Every third protester was a woman. The FiRs were in connectionwithprotestsacrossthecity in supportoftheCockroachJanataParty’sprotestinDelhi,demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and reforms in the education system followingthenEETpaperleak. The Mumbai Police have registered15FiRsagainstnearly 1,500 people since the protests began last week. Eight of these, filed on Tuesday, were later clubbedintoasingleFiRatShivaji Park police station. The indian Express has accessed »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A grieving family member of Head Constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi during the wreath-laying ceremony in Anantnag, Wednesday. ANI First terror attack in Valley since Pahalgam: Policeman on Yatra duty gunned down Bashaarat Masood Srinagar, July 22 in THE first terror attack in Kashmir since the killing of tourists in Pahalgam last year, a policeman was shot dead in Anantnag Wednesday, triggering a massive search operation by security forces. Head Constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi, a resident of Budgam in central Kashmir, who was posted with the iRP and attached with the Special operations group, was on Amarnath yatra duty. The annual pilgrimage is currently suspended because of inclement weather. officials said Qureshi was shot from point blank range near Lal Chowk in Anantnag in south Kashmir on Wednesday afternoon. He succumbed to After surgery, protester injured in march speaks: ‘RAF man shot me... pellets hit me in the face’ Tabshir Shams New Delhi, July 22 Lying on a hospital bed in the heart of Delhi after surgery, 25-year-old irshad Shaikh strugglestofindwordsforwhat happenedtohimonthechaotic afternoon of July 20. Speaking to The Indian Express Wednesday from the EnT ward of Lady Hardinge Hospital,Shaikh,anMBAgraduate working in gurgaon, was among the protesters who had joined the CJP’s “Chalo San- PTI fIle (Left) Irshad Shaikh at Lady Hardinge Hospital; with Union Minister J P Nadda, Tuesday. sad” march that day when, he says, he was hit by “multiple pellets” fired by an “RAF man”. The RAF (Rapid Action Force), drawn from the CRPF, was on duty that day, along withtheDelhiPolice,tocontrol themassivecrowdofprotesters who were part of the Parliament march — a faceoff that quickly spiralled into clashes with the security personnel wielding lathis and teargas. on Wednesday morning, Delhi Police denied they used pellets. The CRPF did not respondtoarequestforcomment fromTheIndianExpress.When asked if Shaikh had pellet injuries and about the nature of histreatment,DrHimaniAhluwalia, Director, Lady Hardinge Hospital, did not comment. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Airline cabin crew member raped in office cab in Hyderabad, driver held 122 150 187 97 explained page 15 Nikhila Henry & Sukalp Sharma Hyderabad,NewDelhi,July22 THEHyDERABADPolicehave arrested the driver of a cab service for the alleged rape and assault of an indigo cabin crew member. A local court remanded the 23-year-old accused, ErrapoguPrashanthKumar,injudi- cial custody. The alleged incident occurred at 2.40 pm on July 20, when the woman boarded her officecabtoreachtheRajivgandhiinternationalAirport,Shamshabad, and start her shift. insteadoftakinghertotheairport, theaccusedallegedlytookherto an isolated place and raped her. indigo said in a statement it was “aware of the matter and understand(s)thatitiscurrently under investigation by the relevant law enforcement agencies”. “We are fully cooperatingwiththeauthoritiesandremain committed to supporting them, as required. During this difficult time, we stand by our colleagueandareextendingour support to her and her family,” the airline’s spokesperson said. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ExpRESS special Four years after administrator raj, BMC corporators & bureaucracy vie for space Nayonika Bose Mumbai, July 22 DiKSHA KARKAR, chairperson of the BMC law committee and a Shiv Sena corporator, wrote to municipal commissioner Ashwini Bhide on June 1, seeking a joint meeting on implementing Marathi signboardsacrossshops.gettingno response for a month, she wrote again on July 14, then escalated the matter on July 21 to industries and Marathi Language Minister Uday Samant. “i had written a letter to the civic chief earlier on June 1 asking for an immediate meeting. However, since theletterdidn’t elicit any response from her, i have escalated the issue with BMC’s elected members say a bureaucracy that ran Mumbai without them for four years hasn’t adjusted to their return. fIle the honourable state cabinet minister,” Karkar told The indian Express on Wednesday. it’s the latest sign of a rift between BMC’s elected representativesanditsbureaucracythat has already flared into three separate flashpoints, evidence of a tension building since corporators returned in February after four years of administrator rule. Corporators across party lines, including from the ruling Mahayuti alliance that Karkar herself belongs to, say the administration hasn’t adjusted to their return and still functions as it did through the years Mumbai was run solely by bureaucrats. The sharpest of those three camelastweek.Thecivicbody’s own inquiry into the Chembur tree collapse that killed a schoolboy absolved its departments of fault, a finding Mayor Ritu Tawde called “unacceptable” in the House on July 16. “When this report was published, it was neither tabled beforemeastheMayornorbefore Hetalgalawhoisthechairman ofthemarketsandgardencommittee,” she said, demanding a re-inquiry. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 IRDAI REGN No. 190 CIN: L66000MH1919G0I000526 ADVT. NO. NIA/26-27/03 E. ExplainEd amid high alert for amarnath Yatra The terror attack comes at a time when security is on high alert for the Amarnath Yatra. A large number of police, paramilitary and Army personnel are deployed across the Union Territory. injuries while being taken to hospital, and was declared dead on arrival. Qureshi is survived by his wife and three children. Hourslater,theJammuand KashmirPolicedetainedhundreds of “suspects” and alleged »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2