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Indian police used excessive force, including electric shock devices and pellet guns, against youth-led protests that forced the education minister to resign last month, Amnesty International said on Monday.
A report from the rights group clashes with the police account that force was used only after protesters turned violent, and comes after India’s Supreme Court set up a panel on Thursday to investigate violence by both police and demonstrators.
Demonstrations in the capital New Delhi, triggered by the leak of the national medical entrance test, turned violent on July 20 when thousands of protesters attempted to march towards parliament.
Amnesty said witness testimony and visual evidence it had verified confirmed the use of “pellet-firing shotguns, tear gas launchers, grenades, batons and electric shock devices against protesters” in Delhi and the eastern state of Bihar.
