NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday shared a video of his interaction with three students who were injured during police action amid recent student protests in Bihar.The three were part of a group of students from Bihar who met the Lok Sabha leader of opposition at his Delhi residence on September 3. In a social media post, Gandhi said the three students had been “shot at”, referring to a protest in Siwan, Bihar, on July 25.“Think about it: what crime had these children committed that they were shot? They had asked the government for just three things — education, employment, and accountability,” the Raebareli MP wrote on X.The leg bone of one of the students, he added, was shattered after he was hit by a bullet fired from an AK-47.“Along with it, his dream of joining the Army and serving the country was shattered too. Bullets tore through the shoulders of two other students,” Rahul Gandhi wrote.“They were not criminals. They were children from poor families who had gone out to study carrying the dreams of their families — some wanted a good job, while others wanted to change the circumstances of their homes,” he added.The Congress leader further remarked that while their physical wounds would heal, there is no answer to how the psychological trauma they had suffered could be treated.“Mr prime minister, Mr chief minister — their broken bones will heal. Can you give them back their broken dreams?” Rahul Gandhi said, questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary.Several parts of Bihar witnessed student protests, some of which turned violent, on July 25 as part of a broader agitation by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in Delhi. The CJP was leading protests demanding the resignation of then-Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak issue, along with reforms in the education system.
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The CJP, which had been protesting at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar since June 21, called off its agitation on July 25, shortly after Pradhan resigned. Union minister Pralhad Joshi has since been given additional charge of the Education ministry.The Bihar government has told the Supreme Court that a police constable fired four rounds from an AK-47 into the air after being trapped in a crowd, while maintaining that no protester was injured in the firing. The constable has since been suspended.
