{"id":24354,"date":"2026-08-01T17:17:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=24354"},"modified":"2026-08-01T17:17:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:17:25","slug":"indias-modi-says-punishing-student-protesters-will-not-resolve-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=24354","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s Modi says punishing student protesters will not resolve situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">MUMBAI, Aug 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he wanted to forgive students who hurled expletives at him during \u200cprotests last month, saying that punishing them and forcing them \u200cto appear repeatedly in court would not help resolve the situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The biggest political crisis \u200bof Modi&#8217;s third term peaked in July after the leak of national exam papers forced a retest for 2 million students, fuelling anger over the lack of opportunities for young Indians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Authorities filed cases against hundreds of demonstrators \u200cafter some clashed with security \u2060forces and shouted abusive slogans at the prime minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;These are misled children. Showing them the right path is \u2060our duty. Punishing them, making them run around courts, or tormenting them in society will not change the situation,&#8221; Modi said in a video posted \u200bon social \u200bmedia late on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I want to \u200bforgive them. I hope society \u200calso accepts this stance of mine.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Tensions erupted between protesters and security forces in several parts of the country during the demonstrations, including in New Delhi, where people attempting to march on parliament were met with tear gas and baton charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The self-named Cockroach Janta Party, which led the movement, said on Monday \u200cthat &#8220;hundreds&#8221; of students had been arrested in \u200bvarious states, in violation of the government&#8217;s \u200bcommitment to dropping police cases \u200bfiled against protesters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Indian youth protesters ended weeks of demonstrations \u200cafter the education minister quit and \u200bthe government accepted \u200ball demands, which included reforms in the exam system and dropping police cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The protests have also prompted the Modi government to introduce \u200ba bill in \u200cparliament to amend the legislation governing public examinations, proposing longer prison terms and \u200bhigher fines for those involved in exam paper leaks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by \u200bRajendra Jadhav; Editing by Tom Hogue)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MUMBAI, Aug 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he wanted to forgive students who hurled expletives at him during \u200cprotests last month, saying that punishing them and forcing them \u200cto appear repeatedly in court would not help resolve the situation. The biggest political crisis \u200bof Modi&#8217;s third term peaked in July after&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/1efaf9cec584137e8b68a1ec2b6be8e7065bf4c7c3a5b210b0acd299c24d3bed\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F2350b5009634007fd43dfa3713eea959","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}