Amid police cases against youth protesters for social media posts making purportedly objectionable remarks about him, PM Narendra Modi on Friday said that he wants to forgive the students.“The country and the world witnessed what happened at Jantar Mantar,” he said in a video posted on social media. “Some mischievous children used abusive language that doesn’t dignify any civilised society. They not only abused me but even my late mother.”Modi said that a person can make an error of judgement when they are young, but such mistakes can be corrected.“I understand the anger in our society,” Modi said. “There is a cultural shock about our daughters using such language. This is the time to show them the right path. They are misguided.”The prime minister appealed for restraint from the public, saying that making the student protesters run around courts will not provide solutions to problems.“I want to forgive them,” Modi said. “The children are ours and we have to show them the right path even if it is difficult to do to people who have been misled,” he added.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 31, 2026
Reacting to the video, the Congress on Saturday said that Modi had “forgiven the country” even as the country demands the prime minister’s apology.Modi’s video message, fifth in a week, came a day after a woman in Noida was booked for making purportedly objectionable remarks about him on social media during the youth protests at Jantar Mantar.A first information report has been registered against 25-year-old Ruchika Singh under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation. The FIR was based on a complaint by a Ghaziabad resident.Reacting to FIRs being filed against several young protesters in recent days, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi had said on Friday that Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah “cannot threaten” Gen Z into silence.The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, which led the youth protests, said that the “misuse of criminal machinery” against Singh was unacceptable. “Harassment of the young must stop immediately,” a spokesperson said on Friday.The Hyderabad Police also registered cases against technology firm Meta’s India head, and several Facebook and Instagram accounts over purportedly objectionable videos and photographs of Modi shared on the two social media platforms during the protests.The case against Singh came two days after the Delhi Police registered an FIR against X for allegedly objectionable and defamatory posts about Modi on the social media platform. A case was registered at the special cell’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit under charges of criminal intimidation, public mischief and defamation.The police had also written to X seeking that the “derogatory, malicious and defamatory content” about “constitutional heads” be removed from the platform.It had asked the social media platform to provide details of the account from which the content was posted, including the holder’s name, address, contact details and email ID. The police also asked for login and logout details along with date and time stamps.The content was posted online during the youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time, over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators.The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.Also read: Youth protests: Can an FIR be withdrawn by political promise?Why the BJP is struggling to crack Gen Z’s reel-driven algorithmFollow Scroll’s coverage of the youth protests here.
