5 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 21, 2026 05:43 AM IST
Ravi, 24, an e-rickshaw driver from Muzaffarnagar, is in ICU at RML Hospital with severe head injuries and brain bleed after the police rained blows during a lathicharge at Sansad Marg, where protesters had gathered for the “Sansad chalo” march against the NEET exam cancellations. He is among the over 100 protesters, who were brought to Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital through the afternoon on Monday with a range of major and minor injuries, most of them in the head and limbs.
His brother, Shyam, told The Indian Express, “The police started firing tear gas. We moved back a little. Then they started a lathicharge. One policeman started hitting Ravi on the head multiple times, then he went down. We somehow managed to get him here,” says Shyam, adding how Ravi had decided to join the protest a week ago because he was fed up with the education system and chose to stand by students. “Ravi received multiple blows on his head, which caused intracranial bleeding. He was unresponsive when he was brought here and his vitals were dropping,” said the on-duty head superintendent of nursing at RML Hospital.
Till 5.30 pm, hospital sources said, emergency teams had attended to around 100 people injured in the protest, 90 protesters and 10 policemen. Four protesters were admitted to ICU till then. As teargas and lathicharge were seen across protest sites — stretching from Gole Dak Khana near Connaught Place in the northwest, through Jantar Mantar, to India Gate in the southeast — many tripped and fell over during a crowd surge. As its emergency was overwhelmed, RML stopped taking in patients. Many of the injured were then taken to Lady Hardinge Hospital.
RML Hospital officials said most of the patients required stitches on their head, tetanus injections and wound-dressing. “They have been hit in the head or in their limbs. Those who needed further investigation were moved from the Emergency for CT Scan, X-Ray and other tests. A lot of patients had to be moved to the red zone, where we have additional medical facilities and equipment. A few patients have been transferred to the ICU as well. Most of the patients are young,” said sources. Some of the patients, according to them, would need immediate orthopaedic surgeries.
Delhi Police personnel disperse the protesters as they attempt to march towards the House, at Parliament Street, on Monday. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
Rishi Raj Singh, 21, from Rajasthan was sitting with his friends outside the emergency ward. With stitches on his head, he said, “These things are expected when you fight with power.” Twenty-two-year old Vishal from Haryana lay on a stretcher in the emergency ward, writhing in pain with a severely bruised leg and waiting for an X-Ray. “I was in Jantar Mantar near the stage area when the police started their lathicharge without warning,” he says.
Azam Khan from Delhi’s Shadipur, whose friend Akhlaq was in the ICU, said, “We were standing near Ashoka Road and the police started lathi charge without warning. Akhlaq fell on the road and a mob ran amok. He was trampled upon and lay there, face down for half-an-hour before I could find him. He was unresponsive,” he says. He got Akhlaq to RML in an autorickshaw.
Chanchal Bora, 35, who came all the way from Uttarakhand to ensure his two-and-half-year-old daughter did not become a victim of the educational system when she grew up, nursed a badly bruised back. “I’ve been in Delhi for days. I came to ask for Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. In return what did I get from the government? I got lathi charged. They think they can stop the youth by using tear gas and lathis. They’re wrong,” he said. Despite his own injuries, Chanchal helped an injured man inside a Delhi police vehicle, who was trying to wrap a handkerchief around his bleeding head with one hand and holding a red rose in another.
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A few police personnel were also admitted to the emergency ward. “I was hit in the head by a stone when I was standing near Sansad Marg,” said a policeman without disclosing his name.
Many lives were also saved thanks to volunteers like Anshul, 22, who helped ferry several injured people to hospital. Waiting at the main gate of RML Hospital with his friends and his mother, who had accompanied him to the protest, he said, “I helped carry more than 30 people off the ground, and with my friend’s help, we got them into whatever vehicle we could find, be it private cars, ambulances and sent them to hospital. It was terrifying, seeing people crumble to the ground,” he said.
At Tolstoy Marg, bystanders left plastic water bottles on the pavement for the protesters, so that they could splash it across their faces to get some relief from teargas.
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