Prateek Tanmay
3 min readHyderabadJun 14, 2026 03:19 PM IST
Addressing a crowd of about 200 people at Hyderabad’s Dharna Chowk at a protest of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) on Sunday, activist Sonam Wangchuk called for a “bhay-mukt Bharat (India without fear)”.
“Young people whose lives are impacted by the many paper leaks and anomalies in examinations should, without fear, question the government responsible for these troubles,” the leader from Ladakh said, calling for educational development and environmental protection to be the way forward for the future of the country.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke was not at the event. Vijeta Dahiya, one of the spokespersons of the party, said, “We remember the number of students who have lost their lives to exam anomalies. We salute the valour of those youth who are standing up demanding the resignation of Union HRD Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.”
The protester said they take inspiration from Bhagat Singh, Dr B R Ambedkar, Birsa Munda and Jyotiba Phule. (Express Photo)
Dahiya also remembered Rohith Vemula, the Dalit student of the University of Hyderabad who died by suicide when faced with caste discrimination in 2016. Taking the same line as Wangchuk, Dahiya said Telangana is known for youth protests, right from the Telangana agitation to the “Save KBR park” protests.
The protest reverberated with slogans of “Jai Bhim” and “Hail Constitution”. The protesters, most of them youngsters, carried posters demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan. They said they take inspiration from Bhagat Singh, Dr B R Ambedkar, Birsa Munda and Jyotiba Phule. Slogans for Savitri Bai Phule and Fatima Sheikh were raised repeatedly.
Speaking to The Indian Express, several young people who had appeared for various competitive examinations, including NEET, NET and UPSC, said that they assembled on the call given by CJP because they want the education system to change. One student, Pranavi Wankhede, who had moved from Maharashtra to Hyderabad to take NEET coaching, said her entire family has suffered because of the exam paper leak. Besides, there’s pressure on her elder sister, who appeared for NEET, to get married. “Parents think that nothing is going to come out of her education. So, they are thinking of marrying her off. This is the case in many families with girl children,” Wankhede said.
Another student, Nitya, said she decided to participate in the protest because she wants a “foolproof examination system”. “I do not want to suffer like this again,” she said.
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Kartik, an MBA final-year student, said, “I want to write NET and am already under pressure, wondering whether the paper would leak. I am standing up for everyone who is in my shoes.”
Amid Vande Mataram and Jai Shri Ram slogans, another student, Teena, said, “Look at what is happening here. Are we not patriots?”
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