Skip next section What you need to know
What you need to know
These are our rolling updates from India on Monday, September 28:
- Lovely Professional University in Punjab suspends classes for 10 days after protests that erupted over claims of a campus rape ended in clashes
- The Supreme Court of India says increasing rape cases in Delhi and the National Capital Region ‘underline a systemic failure’ by law enforcement and administration
- Indian Air Force airlifts 12 civilians in Chhattisgarh flood rescue
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Skip next section India’s Supreme Court takes note of recent Delhi-NCR rape cases09/28/2026September 28, 2026
India’s Supreme Court takes note of recent Delhi-NCR rape cases
The Supreme Court of India said on Monday that the recent slew of rape cases in the Indian capital of New Delhi and its neighboring districts “starkly underline a systematic failure” by law enforcement and public administrative authorities, legal news websites reported.
The top court made the statement as it opened a “suo motu cognizance” legal review of the latest cases of rape in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), LiveLaw and Bar and Bench reported.
In Indian law, a suo motu cognizance refers to a court taking notice of a matter on its own initiative, without a formal petition or complaint being filed.
The two-judge bench expressed its distress over the news reports of the recurring sexual violence and underpinned the need to fix accountability, LiveLaw reported.
“These incidents considered alongside other recent reports of sexual offences across Delhi-NCR starkly underline a systematic failure on the part of the law enforcement and the public administrative authorities to guarantee basic public safety,” LiveLaw quoted the bench as saying.
Last week, Delhi saw hundreds of students protesting and expressing their outrage over the safety of women after a teenage girl was allegedly gang raped by three men at a public park in the capital.
In August, media reports said that a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gang raped in a bus moving from Noida, a staellite city of the Indian capital, to Delhi by the vehicle’s driver and conductor.
The court on Monday said that public spaces, including parks, roads, buses, metro stations, subways and footbridges, cannot be allowed to become “high-risk zones” over inadequate illumination or surveillance, lack of patrolling, or other preventable administrative inadequacies, Bar and Bench reported.
Supreme court says need to fix accountability
The judges drew parallels with the 2012 fatal Delhi gang rape on a bus that came to be known as the Nirbhaya case.
“One cannot help but draw painful parallels to the Nirbhaya incident of 2012,” LiveLaw reported the bench as saying.
The court also observed whether the systematic law enforcement apparatus has made any meaningful advancement since the Nirbhaya case, according to LiveLaw.
The court stressed that “expressions of solidarity” were not a solution to the offences it called “social evil,” adding that a “measurable response” was required with fixing “responsibility and accountability” upon the authorities entrusted with crime prevention, maintenance of public order and protection of vulnerable persons, according to local outlets.
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https://p.dw.com/p/5NO0qSkip next section India’s badminton star Sindhu ‘hurting’ after hectic Asian Games schedule 09/28/2026September 28, 2026
India’s badminton star Sindhu ‘hurting’ after hectic Asian Games schedule
Indian badminton star PV Sindhu has voiced her disappointment at losing her Asian Games quarterfinal, also questioning her gruelling schedule that saw her play three matches in less than 24 hours over the weekend.
“My Asian Games campaign is over, and I’m hurting,” Sindhu wrote to her roughly 3 million followers on social media. “I had my chance. Letting it slip hurts.”
The 31-year-old lost to China’s Chen Yufei on Sunday, having played both her second and third round matches on Saturday.
“Three matches in 18 hours. Back at 3 a.m. [on Saturday night], out again at 8:30 a.m. [on Sunday morning]. It took a toll,” the former world champion and two-time Olympic medalist wrote.
Sindhu thanked fans who had stayed up to cheer her on and said she also felt a sense of pride at competing her fourth Asian Games, concluding the post by saying, “I’ll go again.”
Sindhu’s India teammate H.S. Prannoy had similarly criticized both the packed schedule and other conditions for players like accommodation and logisticts in the province of Aichi and main city of Nagoya in Japan.
“It’s cruel beacuse everybody is aiming for a good Asian Games, which comes once in four years,” Prannoy said. “To have two singles games in a day, I haven’t seen it like that in ages.”
https://p.dw.com/p/5NNvnSkip next section Lovely Professional University protest: Classes suspended after violence during protests over suspected assault09/28/2026September 28, 2026
Lovely Professional University protest: Classes suspended after violence during protests over suspected assault
Punjab’s Lovely Professional University (LPU) has suspended classes starting Monday and postponed mid-term examinations after a protest over an alleged rape turned violent on Sunday with protesters clashing with the police and vandalism being reported.
The private university located in the city of Phagwara witnessed massive student unrest after claims spread on social media that a female university student was allegedly raped within the campus premises by an outsider and had later died by suicide.
The protests grew to be violent when the protesters clashed with the police, pelted stones at the security personnel, smashed windows and set fire to some objects within the university complex, reports said.
Some students later claimed in social media posts that the vandals were not students, but outsiders.
Heavy police deployment
The university has suspended regular classes for 10 days, news agency ANI cited a statement from LPU as saying.
The statement said students could travel to their hometowns during the suspension of classes and advised those who stay back to remain in their hostels or places of accommodation and avoid any unnecessary movement. The statement also called on students to avoid involvement in the unrest.
Over 2,000 police personnel were deployed to ensure security on the campus, reports quoted the Additional Director General of Police Fayaz Farooqui as saying.
The protesters also blocked the national highway between Jalandhar and Phagwara highway early Sunday, leading to traffic disruptions.
On Monday, police said that the situation had been brought under control and traffic movement on the highway had been restored.
Claims of rape remain unverified
Meanwhile, the police are yet to confirm whether a student was raped within LPU’s campus. They have launched an investigation to examine the facts of the incident.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has taken note of the situation and has directed the Director General of Police to visit the campus, reports said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Punjab State Women Commision is seeking a detailed report on the alleged rape, ANi reported.
What has LPU said?
The LPU has denied that the alleged rape took place, calling the claims “false, baseless and fabricated rumors”.
The university on Sunday posted a video with three female students who it said reside in the girls’ hostel room where the alleged incident is claimed to have taken place.
The video purportedly shows the girls denying that there had been a rape, with one of them asking the police to stop visiting the room repeatedly.
However, media reports on Monday said that the same girls later appear in a separate purported video, claiming that they were instructed on what to say in the statement. They then allegedly claim that their clips were “trimmed” and used without their consent.
https://p.dw.com/p/5NNofSkip next section Welcome to our coverage09/28/2026September 28, 2026
Welcome to our coverage
This is Dharvi Vaid Dhulia from DW’s studio in New Delhi, bringing you the Monday edition of our India blog — where we break down all the biggest headlines that have got the world’s most populous nation talking.
Weather seems to be going through a changing mood in the northern, central and eastern parts of India. There is a nip in the air in the Indian capital and surrounding regions, heavy rains have led to a flood-like situation unfolding in the state of Chhattisgarh, while lofty sections of the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are witnessing a snowfall.
On the other hand, heat is on in the state of Punjab — quite literally — after massive student unrest at a private university, over rumors of a rape on campus, saw protesters damaging property on the university premises and torching some objects.
Meanwhile, India’s top court has started a legal review of the recent rape cases in Delhi and the National Capital Region, drawing parallels to the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case that became a symbol of the country’s battle against sexual violence, leading to sweeping legal reforms.
The Supreme Court has now questioned if systemic law enforcement mechanisms have actually made any meaningful progress, nearly 14 years on.
Stay tuned as we bring you more.
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