On the Day the Govt Promised Wangchuk No Cases Against Protesters, Police Went After a Volunteer’s Family
By Asad Ashraf
July 24, 2026
Photo by Surabhi Singh / Newsreel Asia
Hours after the Centre assured activist Sonam Wangchuk that no cases would be filed against those who had protested at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and marched to Parliament on 20 July, one volunteer’s family was learning that the assurance did not extend to them, Newsreel Asia has learned.
Junaid, a native of Ghaziabad district in Uttar Pradesh and a volunteer with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) who has spent weeks supplying food to fellow volunteers on the ground, told Newsreel Asia that his father was picked up by the police on July 23, and only released after questioning.
His brother’s Aadhaar card has allegedly been confiscated. In Meerut, his sisters-in-law have faced repeated visits from the police, and her father-in-law was also briefly detained.
“They came for my father first,” Junaid said. “He had nothing to do with any of this except that he is my father. They took him, questioned him, and let him go, but by then the message had already been sent.”
He said the pressure did not stop there. “My brother’s Aadhaar has been taken. He has not been arrested, he has not been charged with anything. But they hold onto his documents like they are hostages.”
The alleged harassment, according to Junaid, is not limited to Ghaziabad. “My sister is married into a family in Meerut. The police have gone there too. Her father-in-law was also detained. What has he done? He is an old man who happens to be related to me by marriage.”
“This is the day they told Sonam Wangchuk there would be no cases,” he pointed out. “If this is what happens without a case being filed, I don’t know what they mean by ‘no cases (against the protesters).’”
Who is Junaid
Junaid’s house falls under the jurisdiction of Mussoorie police station. He has been one of the quieter fixtures of the CJP protests, working not on stage or in front of cameras but in the background, making sure volunteers holding the ground at Jantar Mantar, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, have food to eat.
His role, largely logistical and unglamorous, appears to be enough to have drawn the attention of the police to his entire family. Junaid himself was not named in any protest-related case at the time of writing, nor, by his own account, was his father, brother or brother-in-law’s family.
Newsreel Asia has reached out to Delhi Police and Uttar Pradesh Police for comments and will update this report if a response is received.
