New Delhi: A week ago, life changed dramatically for 10 student activists who were suddenly picked up and detained by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell. After allegedly being tortured physically, verbally and mentally, the students want justice – but more immediately, they fear what the future may hold.On the afternoon of March 12, 2026, Shiv Kumar, a labour rights activist with the Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, and Ilakkiya, a student activist, said they were “abducted” from the back gate of Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi. Allegedly blindfolded, pushed and shoved into a vehicle by people dressed in civil clothes, Kumar and Ilakkiya were petrified.The two were not alone in this ordeal. Many more followed. Eight others were picked up later during that day and the next by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell.‘Sexualised interrogation’After Kumar was picked up, the real trauma began. He described his ordeal as “painful”, “humiliating” and “highly sexualised”. During his interrogation, Kumar says that the officers beat him with his own belt, hitting the metal buckle on his genitals. “I was hung upside down for more than two hours and beaten on my lower body. They dragged me by my beard, and stomped on my feet with their shoes,” Kumar told The Wire.“They forced me to sign a false statement at gunpoint and threatened me with death. During the two days that I was there, I didn’t even know that it was the special cell, only after being released I got to know their designation,” Kumar alleged.Kumar has also alleged that he and a fellow detainee, Rudra, were stripped naked in each other’s presence and subjected to sexual humiliation and assault. They were also coerced into physically assaulting others who were detained with them, Kumar alleged.Ilakkiya, 23, told The Wire that most of the interrogation during her detention was focused on humiliating her by using sexual language. “Their harassment was focused on highly sexualised comments,” Ilakkiya said, with officers making remarks about how “this generation” is open to sleeping with different people. Avinash, another detainee, said that he was abducted on March 13 along with others. He was allegedly slapped, kicked and humiliated, including being mocked about his sexual orientation. “They forced me to undertake degrading acts under threat of violence, with another detainee.”Adding to this, Rudra, another student with Nazariya, a magazine focusing on the on the political issues of the working class, peasantry, students, intellectuals and professionals, said that he was severely beaten, mocked for his sexual identity, stripped naked multiple times, and subjected to extreme sexual violence. He alleges that he was threatened with extrajudicial killing and told his death would be staged as a suicide.Rudra also shared that he was also coerced into giving false statements and undertaking sexual acts with fellow detainees.Manjeet Kumar, associated with the Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, was also picked up by the Cell. Kumar alleges that the officers behaved in a deeply casteist manner towards him and forced him to strip to so that the officers can “confirm” his religious identity.“They told me to engage sexually with an elderly person who was also in prison. When I refused, they stripped me again and used Dalit slurs at me. Later, an officer unzipped his pants in front of me and asked for a sexual favour,” Kumar told The Wire.The next day, Kumar said that another officer came and asked about his caste. Upon knowing his caste, the office made him mop, clean and dust the entire room he was kept in. Later in the day, another officer came to question him, and told Kumar that he would be made to engage in sexual acts with other male and female detainees. When Kumar’s mother and his friend Aman went to file a habeas corpus petition in the Delhi high court, Aman alleges that he was abducted while returning to Delhi. After he parted ways with from Manjeet’s mother (the petitioner) near his village, he was picked up and brought to the Delhi Police Special Cell office in New Friends Colony. He says he was explicitly threatened not to approach the courts.Another student, Gaurav, says he was stripped naked on orders of an officer and had his face dunked into an unflushed commode, and was threatened with death if he did not comply. Gaurav says that he was stripped naked in front of other student activists and ordered to touch other activists inappropriately. Gaurav told The Wire that the officer also photographed him and other detainees in this situation.The Wire has reached out to the Delhi Police’s Special Cell to ask why the ten were detained by plainclothes policemen, and about the student activists’ allegations of torture and mistreatment. This article will be updated when a response is received.‘Where is Vallika?’The activists said they were repeatedly asked “where is Vallika”, and even told to make something up if they did not have a real answer. The police were referring to the disappearance of Vallika Varshi of Nazariya magazine. The activists believe this line of questioning is because Varshi’s mother is a bureaucrat in the Union government.This is not the first time that these activists have been picked up by the Cell. The officers’ have harassed them and tried to find out Varshi’s location in the past too, they said.For instance, Ehtemam-Ul Haque from the Forum Against Corporatisation and Militarisation (FACAM) was reportedly picked up in July 2025 as well. Haque alleged that the officers made deeply vulgar and sexualised accusations against him and targeted him for being Muslim. He too was repeatedly asked about Varshi’s location.“They took me away, blindfolded, made me kneel down and fired two shots in the air. They were trying to show me that my life was up to them now. They could do anything. One of them even said that there were thousands who rallied for Najeeb but no one would rally for me. They said they would kill me and throw me in the Yamuna river,” Haque said.Another activist, Lakshita Rajora, also from FACAM, said that there was repeated focus on Varshi even though none of them had any knowledge of her whereabouts. “There have been incidents when officials have introduced themselves as encounter specialists to us students. That sends a chilling message,” Rajora said.Akshay, a Delhi University Law Department student, claims that he was also abducted and tortured and repeatedly asked about Varshi. Akshay said that officers deliberately targeted his injured knee, forcing his legs apart and applying pressure while beating him.Several formerly detained activists have also alleged that the officers questioning them would repeatedly threaten them that they would be charged with UAPA, if they refuse to answer their questions.Questions in courtOn March 15, the Delhi high court raised questions to the Delhi Police over the detention of ten student activists by Special Cell officials.A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja asked the Delhi Police to explain under what circumstances the were activists detained, while hearing three habeas corpus petitions. The high court has ordered the Delhi Police to preserve CCTV footage of the Special Cell premises in connection with this.Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves and advocates Shahrukh Alam , Deeksha Dwivedi and Jasdeep Dhillon appeared for the petitioners. Dwivedi told The Wire, “It is very shocking to me that this is happening in a place like Delhi, by a very specialised agency of Delhi Police. This has happened in daylight and the impunity with which they’re working is shocking, the way they’re giving death threats. The modus of the special cell is not surprising. What is surprising is that despite so many accounts of the atrocities committed by special cell, it’s still happening.”She added that their petition argues that the activists were illegally detained, deprived of their liberty and subjected to custodial violence, and the officers who are responsible for this must be held accountable. The court will hear the matter again on March 27.The Campaign Against State Repression has also condemned the actions of the special cell, labelling the detention as “abduction, illegal detention, and brutal torture of labour rights activists student activists and anti-displacement activists by the Delhi Police Special Cell”.Tarushi Aswani is an independent journalist.