Social media videos and posts circulating since the evening of July 24, 2026, claim that five students, described as Muslim students from the Jamia area, were detained by Delhi Police near Jamia Millia Islamia while returning home from the ongoing student protest at Jantar Mantar. The students were reportedly taken toward a police station but were later released after intervention by social activist Zeba Khan and reporter Afzal Alam, who are said to have chased the police vehicle.
According to the accounts shared widely, including by fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, the incident occurred after the protest activities for the day had concluded. The students were not at the protest site itself but were allegedly stopped while heading back to the Jamia area. Critics of the action have questioned the basis for the detention, arguing that no specific evidence of wrongdoing or violation of law was publicly cited at the time, and that participating in or returning from a peaceful protest should not lead to such treatment.
Video footage circulating online shows individuals confronting police personnel and following a vehicle, after which the students were reportedly freed. Activist Zeba Khan and reporter Afzal Alam are credited in multiple posts with securing the release through their intervention. Questions raised in the posts include whether peaceful participation in the Jantar Mantar demonstrations, centered on demands related to examination irregularities and education reforms, constitutes grounds for detention, and why students from the Jamia area were specifically targeted.
Delhi Police had not issued a public statement on this specific incident as of the latest available reports. Earlier in the week, police had detained groups of Jamia students on their way to the protest site (including near Nizamuddin), with some accounts alleging preventive action. The broader student protests at Jantar Mantar have continued amid heightened security measures.
If the police have no evidence of any crime or unlawful activity, they have no right to detain or arrest peaceful protestors returning home after exercising their democratic rights. Such actions without legal basis undermine the rule of law and public order that the police are meant to uphold.
