Tribal students marched for better school meals. Mumbai Police detained them before they could protest
While the Cockroach Janata Party protest went ahead in Mumbai, tribal students who had marched from Nashik demanding better food and conditions in their schools allege they were detained before they could reach Azad Maidan and Raj Bhavan where they had intended to hold a protest.
Students and Congress leaders allege that the police entered Tilak Bhavan, the official headquarters of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), where several students had been put up, in the intervening night of October 4 and October 5, and took students into custody without a warrant.
The MPCC has since filed a complaint, while Mumbai Police have disputed the claim.
The protesting students had set out on a foot march from Nashik on September 28, after 47 days of protest at Nashik’s Eidgah Maidan over the deplorable conditions of Maharashtra’s Ashram Shalas (residential schools for scheduled tribe students) and other tribal schools, and aimed to reach the protest sites on October 5. They allege that poor-quality food, reduced rations, and inadequate facilities are putting students at risk, and hold Tribal Development Minister Ashok Uike responsible, demanding his resignation.
Separately, aspirants of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) in Pune have been protesting since October 1, demanding the resignation of its chairman Vivek Bhimanwar over the alleged leak of the Drug Inspector examination held on March 19, 2026.
The march to Mumbai
Sagar Salunkhe, an NSUI leader who was also detained by the police, told Newslaundry, “A core demand was to cancel the central kitchen system for tribal schools, as the quality of food being provided to children in Adivasi schools was extremely poor.”
The centralised kitchen system was an initiative launched by the Maharashtra Tribal Development Department in 2015 with Tata Trust and the Akshaya Patra Foundation. The idea was to provide good-quality food to reduce malnourishment in the tribal hostels and ashram shalas. The food is cooked in one kitchen and then transported to the other schools in a 50 to 70 km radius. But recent reports have cited instances of food poisoning and poor-quality food from this system.
On the protesters’ plan for Mumbai, Salunkhe said, “The protesting students were in touch with us and requested the NSUI to arrange accommodation for them.” The NSUI had reportedly arranged accommodation for 300 students at Tilak Bhavan.
Rahul Pawra, a student who was part of the protest march, claimed that the police started detaining students the moment they learnt that protesters had entered Mumbai.
“Although the students entered the city in small groups, at least 400-500 students were detained during the night and forced to leave Mumbai in buses and trains. Our demands are genuine, and we had been protesting peacefully for more than 40 days,” said Pawra.
It was late on Sunday night (October 4) when the NSUI began receiving calls from many of the students trying to enter the city who were being detained.
“The police stopped some students who were travelling through Navi Mumbai. Around 60 students were bundled into a vehicle and dropped on the road at Bhiwandi in the middle of the night. Some students were detained at Dadar and CSMT stations. I was also detained. They took me to various places. They put me in seven different vans and took me to different police stations. In many cases, they forced bus drivers not to stop until they reached Nashik,” alleged Salunkhe.
He added that three girl students were with him when police picked them up early in the morning. They were taken around Mumbai until 2.30 pm and finally dropped off at Kopri police station in Thane, he said.
Detentions at Tilak Bhavan
Pawra alleged that the Mumbai Police had also detained protesting students seeking accommodation for the night at Tilak Bhavan and those already inside. “The students were already exhausted after walking for more than a week. Despite this, they were detained. Police also entered Tilak Bhavan where we had been given accommodation for the night. There was heavy police deployment outside the office, and people were not being allowed to enter. They took three girl students in custody as well.”
State Congress leader Atul Londhe has condemned the Maharashtra government’s approach to protesting students and the Opposition, calling it “totally autocratic”.
“How can they enter the office of a national party and forcibly take away students from there in the middle of the night? When the Congress party president warned that if the police did not release the students who were detained by police at various places, the Congress party would gherao Varsha Bungalow, the official residence of the chief minister, it was only after that they started releasing the students,” claimed Londhe.
An MPCC office bearer, Namdev Chavan, has filed a complaint at the Dadar police station, seeking an FIR against Mumbai Police officers and others involved in the alleged illegal entry into Tilak Bhavan and the detentions.
According to the complaint, at around 3 am on the intervening night of October 4 and October 5, a large number of police personnel entered Tilak Bhavan. The police allegedly went up to the second floor, where they took into custody several students, including boys and girls, along with two office bearers of Congress and NSUI.
The complaint further alleged that the police did not show any search or arrest warrant or written order, nor did they communicate the grounds for taking anyone into custody, and that one of the girl students detained had fainted.
During the day, it said, police also detained students who were merely trying to enter Tilak Bhavan to meet other students staying there. The complaint further alleged that police surrounded Tilak Bhavan and restricted the movement of staff, office bearers and citizens without showing any prohibitory order or written direction.
To back their claims, the MPCC has submitted videos and photographs of police personnel inside the premises, and has also sought an examination of the CCTV footage. Newslaundry has contacted the office of Mumbai Police Commissioner Deven Bharti for comment on the allegations but has received no response so far. This report will be updated when a response is received.
MPSC aspirants’ protest
The detentions in Mumbai came as students in Pune pressed a similar demand against another official. MPSC aspirants there have been protesting since October 1, seeking Bhimanwar’s resignation over the alleged leak of the Drug Inspector examination.
According to Kiran Nimbore, a student leader leading the protest, more than 1,000 applications from students across Maharashtra were sent to the chief minister and the governor, and long marches were held in 10 cities in September, but no action was taken. A student delegation met the chief minister four times.
Initially, Nimbore claimed, the chief minister told them he could not ask Bhimanwar to resign because the MPSC is a constitutional body. “But when we met the CM for the fourth time on September 30, he said that he would initiate the process to remove Bhimanwar, but he did not give us any written assurance and asked us for some time. We actually thought of giving time till October 2, but then after discussing with students we started our protest on October 1. Since then, we have been sitting in protest, and we will not withdraw it until Bhimanwar is removed from the post of MPSC chairman.”
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