Human Rights Defenders’ Alert - India (HRDA) has strongly condemned the use of force by the Tamil Nadu police against students and youth who have staged peaceful protests, demanding accountability with regard to NEET paper leak. The HRDA also demanded accountability over the paper leak.In a press statement, national working secretary of the HRDA Henri Tiphagne said protests in Tamil Nadu must be understood in their national context. They were a reaction to attacks on protesters affiliated to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and allied student organisations in New Delhi, where the young demonstrators raising the same demands were met with force.At the heart of these protests, in Tamil Nadu and nationally, was one central demand: accountability. Students were calling on Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan to take responsibility for the NEET paper leak and the broader failures in the conduct of the examination, and to answer for the institutional lapses that have affected the future of lakhs of young aspirants, he said.Students across the country, including in Tamil Nadu, had responded in solidarity, refusing to stay silent while their peers elsewhere were subjected to police action for making the same legitimate demands.Students who organised, mobilised, and spoke up for accountability and reform in education system were, in every meaningful sense, human rights defenders. Under the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, anyone who peacefully worked to promote and protect human rights, including the right to education and the right to a fair and transparent examination process, was entitled to recognition and protection, not suppression, he said.Mr. Henri said to treat these students as law and order problems rather than as rights-holders and defenders was to fundamentally misread the moment. The right to protest peacefully was a right guaranteed to every citizen, and it did not diminish because the protester was young or a student. The Tamil Nadu Police, like every police force in the country, had a constitutional obligation to facilitate peaceful assembly, and not to suppress it.He urged the State government to instruct the police to immediately cease all use of force, intimidation, and detention against the student protesters, to treat them as rights-holders exercising a constitutionally protected freedom, and to ensure that the legitimate demand for accountability over the NEET paper leak was heard rather than suppressed. Published - July 24, 2026 12:06 am IST