On July 19, 2025, Indian police arrested several student leaders from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi Vidyarthi (BRSV), the student wing of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi party during a protest at Osmania University in Telangana.

The students had gathered on campus to distribute pamphlets detailing the impacts of the Banakacherla reservoir project, an initiative designed to divert surplus floodwaters from the Godavari River to the drought-prone Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh.

BRSV representatives maintained that they were peacefully raising awareness when police intervened, detaining the BRSV president and twenty other student leaders.

Scholars at Risk is concerned about the detention of students in an effort to restrict the nonviolent exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly — conduct that is expressly protected by international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which India is a party. State authorities have a responsibility to refrain from restricting nonviolent expression or assembly. In addition to the harm to the immediate victims, such incidents undermine academic freedom and democratic society generally.

Sources:
*SAR identified this incident in data made publicly available by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
https://telanganatoday.com/brs-student-wing-leaders-arrested-at-osmania-university-during-banakacharla-protest
https://x.com/GelluSrinuBRS/status/1946485809068249218?s=20
https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/banakacherla-project