New Delhi: Junaid Malik, ‘food volunteer’ at the Cockroach Janta Party protest who was released Monday after his detention by the Delhi Police last week, has filed a plea in the Supreme Court challenging his abduction and illegal detention. Alleging violation of Article 21—the fundamental right to protection of life and personal liberty—the 30-year-old law graduate wants a judicial probe into his illegal detention.
Malik, a resident of Nahal village in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, completed his bachelor’s degree in law from Chaudhary Charan Singh University in 2025. He did not hold a formal leadership position within the protests but was widely recognised at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar as ‘Junaid Bhai’, the man responsible for coordinating and distributing essential food and water to thousands of students and protesters at Jantar Mantar for over 35 days.
Malik’s transition from a behind-the-scenes volunteer to a Supreme Court petitioner follows what he describes as a “harrowing campaign of state-sponsored intimidation”.
According to his plea, his visible role in the media as a face of the “grassroots” support for the protest made him a target for police harassment. He alleges that his father was illegally detained and interrogated about the family’s bank accounts, and that his residence was raided by a team of officials who conducted extensive searches without following proper legal procedures.
State overreach
The core of Malik’s petition centers on a chilling account of personal abduction and illegal detention. He details that on the night of 24 July, while returning from the hospital after seeking treatment for a dog bite, Malik and a friend were intercepted by four or five police personnel in an unmarked white Scorpio.
He claims they were blindfolded, driven to an undisclosed location, and subjected to a night of threatening interrogation regarding the sources of funding for the protest’s food distribution. The ordeal reportedly ended with them being abandoned in a forest near the Dehradun-Mussoorie Road, several hours away from the capital.
Through his application, via advocate Neha Rathi, for intervention in the ongoing writ petition filed by Professor Manoj Kumar Jha, Malik is now seeking the protection of the Supreme Court of India. He wants the court to grant him and his family immunity from further coercive action, arguing that the state is “using its power to retaliate against citizens exercising their fundamental right to peaceful protest and dissent”.
Malik specifically cites Article 21 of the Constitution, asserting that his detention violated the landmark D.K. Basu guidelines regarding the rights of arrestees. Further, Malik seeks a formal judicial enquiry into his alleged illegal detention and the threats made against his family. He argues that the police actions was intended to “coerce and pressurise” him into withdrawing from the protest movement.
By seeking to assist the court in its adjudication of the broader National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) controversy, Malik hopes to ensure that the machinery of the state is not used as an “instrument of intimidation” against those demanding transparency and accountability in the nation’s education system.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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The scale at which food and other items were made available to whoever was visiting Jantar Mantar makes it amply clear that a huge corpus was spent on the arrangements.
It’s the job of security agencies to find out where this money came from. If citizens of the nation donated, that’s fine.
But if Qatar or China or some US based foundation (Ford, Carnegie, etc.) are involved, then it’s a serious matter worth investigating.