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A group of two dozen independent United Nations human rights experts urged India on Tuesday to stop using what they described as excessive force against protesters, and called for an impartial investigation into how police and security agencies handled this month's demonstrations.

The experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but work independently of the United Nations, issued a joint statement saying that demonstrators had been injured and that some reported being ill-treated. They also raised concern about reports of sexual violence and other gender-based abuse during the protests and in related detentions.

"Despite the non-violent nature of the assemblies, law enforcement agencies have reportedly deployed force against unarmed students, including lathi charges, and have prevented thousands from joining the protests," the statement said. A lathi charge is a baton charge used by police to break up a crowd.

The experts asked the authorities to "immediately cease the use of excessive force, rescind blanket assembly bans, and refrain from the misuse of digital surveillance, including through biometrics, and internet disruptions". They said any limit on peaceful assembly must be lawful, pursue a legitimate aim and be proportionate.

The protests are led by opposition parties and student groups, including the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, and centre on the revision of India's voter lists. The demonstrators want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign. They say about 130 million names have been removed from the rolls and that the deletions fall hardest on poor and homeless people and on ethnic minorities, including Muslims.

Election Commission data cited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party gives a different picture of the same figure. According to that accounting, the 130 million names include about 63 million people recorded as having moved, 30 million who could not be traced, 28 million who had died and 10 million duplicate entries.

The Election Commission rejects the charge of bias. It says it has been removing duplicate, deceased, shifted and otherwise ineligible voters, and that anyone excluded by mistake can seek re-inclusion and appeal. The BJP says the revision is a lawful exercise and that questioning it undermines the country's electoral process.

The dispute has been building since late September, when the Indian Express reported that two deputies to the election commissioner had repeatedly raised concerns internally about how the revision, registration procedures and digital systems were being handled. The commission has said disagreement inside the body is normal and that its decisions were lawful.

The campaign has deep roots. The Cockroach Janta Party began as an online satire and grew into a street movement during the summer, when protests over leaked examination papers forced the education minister to resign. The current demonstrations, which the group calls a second season, have revived that momentum around the right to vote.

The numbers matter beyond the current standoff. At least seven Indian states are due to hold elections next year, including Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state. Verification in Uttar Pradesh began in October 2025 and removed 13 per cent of names, according to local media reports cited by Reuters. Excluded voters must prove their eligibility or win an appeal before they can cast a ballot.

New Delhi has repeatedly dismissed outside criticism of the crackdown as interference in India's internal affairs. That was its response earlier this month when the UN human rights office expressed concern about mass detentions linked to the protests. The Daily Star reported that the Indian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on the latest statement, and that the government said this month its law enforcement had acted "strictly in accordance with the law".

Human rights groups have also weighed in. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the handling of the protests, putting the Indian government under pressure from outside as well as from opposition parties at home.

Several things remain unclear. The experts' statement does not give a verified count of those injured, detained or ill-treated, and there has been no independent audit of the allegations. It is not yet known whether India will permit any inquiry, who would conduct it, or whether the government will respond formally. Statements by UN special rapporteurs are persuasive but not binding.

What happens next will be shaped by the streets and the courts as much as by diplomacy. Organisers have said the protests will continue until the election chief steps down. The Election Commission, for its part, has promised home visits and extended deadlines in some states to help voters who were left off the rolls. With state elections approaching, the appeals process and the final voter lists will be watched closely, and so will the question of whether anyone is held accountable for the policing of the past month.

At least 54 Bangladeshis have died after travelling to Russia for work and being sent into its army, Prothom Alo reported on 21 October, citing families, survivors and officials. The figure covers three years and is the fullest public tally so far. No government department has published an official total.

The largest known group left Dhaka on 7 May: 30 men who each paid an average of about Tk 10 lakh to three recruiting agencies, Jabale Nur International, RS International and TS Group. They had been promised construction jobs. Instead, their passports and mobile phones were taken on arrival and they were handed to the Russian military, the Special Response Battalion (SRB) said.

After 21 days of training they were sent to the front line in Ukraine. According to the SRB, 17 were killed in drone strikes on their first day and three more died later, and it has confirmed 20 of the 30 dead. Two injured survivors came home, two are being treated in a Moscow hospital and six remain on the battlefield. The force has not said how many bodies, if any, have been recovered.

Survivors describe a hurried route to combat. Rajan Hossain, 21, of Kaliganj in Jhenaidah, suffered a broken pelvis in a drone strike and lost the use of the lower half of his body. He dragged himself about four kilometres to a camp, went four days before reaching a hospital and later got to the embassy, flying home on 23 August. Adnan Hossain was treated in Moscow for abdominal wounds and returned on 15 September after three operations.

Families have been left with neither bodies nor answers. Abdullah Al Mamun of Lalmonirhat telephoned his younger brother the day before he was due to go into battle and said he might not come back, his father, Abdul Majid, told Prothom Alo. The family later heard from a friend that he had been killed and held a funeral in his absence, but because no death could be confirmed, those who came offered prayers rather than a burial service. Five months on, his wife is raising their one-year-old son, and the family is in debt.

The embassy in Moscow had raised the alarm before the deployments. In a letter to the Expatriates' Welfare Ministry on 25 May, its labour wing said Jabale Nur had asked permission to send 70 workers but the embassy had refused to attest them, and a request from RS International for 10 workers had been suspended. On 18 May a worker's family telephoned the embassy to say 30 men had travelled through the two agencies and were being sent to fight. TS Overseas had sent workers without attestation.

The Expatriates' Welfare Ministry has since cancelled the licences of Jabale Nur, TS Overseas and RS International. It also shut down the server of Bannya Bijoy Overseas, the agency with the largest share of Russia clearances, about 2,500 workers or 27 per cent. Police arrested Jabale Nur founder Mizanur Rahman, 55, and Abu Taher, alias Lentu, 50, on 13 October. The Criminal Investigation Department says at least six trafficking cases have been filed.

Officials disagree about how the men ended up in combat. Bangladesh's ambassador in Moscow, Md Nazrul Islam, told Prothom Alo that more than 90 per cent of the workers went to fight of their own accord, and that Russia holds written proof that the latest 30 did so. The SRB's preliminary finding is that none of the 30 was fit for combat and that they were used as bait, sent forward so that Ukrainian drone strikes would reveal enemy positions. Both versions agree that the men paid for civilian jobs.

The scale is hard to pin down. Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training figures show 37 clearances for Russia in 2023, 1,395 in 2024 and 4,725 in 2025, with 3,105 up to 15 October this year. The foreign ministry says Russia has supplied information on 40 people over four to five months without separating the dead from the missing, and has said nothing about the most recent 20 deaths. Compensation is available only where a death is proven or a person has been missing for more than six months, and Moscow is not returning bodies.

Independent researchers put the numbers higher. In March, Bangkok-based Fortify Rights and Ukraine-based Truth Hounds reported that at least 104 Bangladeshis had been recruited into the Russian military by February 2026, of whom at least 34 were reported killed. They found that recruiters targeted poor men with offers of work as cleaners, factory hands, electricians and guards.

Minister Ariful Haque Chowdhury said the government is trying to discourage the journey and will not issue clearance without verified job information. Shariful Hasan, who heads BRAC's migration programme, said no one can say how many Bangladeshis have gone, where the rest are, or how many have died, and that families receive neither bodies nor compensation. He called for a hotline and a public list of the missing.

Several questions remain open: the true death toll, the fate of the six men still listed as on the battlefield, whether any bodies can be recovered, and whether families will ever receive compensation. Police are still looking for another suspect, Mostafizur, and for a Russian man named Igor and a Kyrgyz woman named Julia whom the SRB links to the network. The embassy says it is talking to Moscow. For now, the only confirmed count is the SRB's 20 out of 30, and the families' own, longer list.