A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

A wave of euphoria and excitement swept through Shivaji Park as near daily student protests culminated in a victory rally. The venue resonated with patriotic songs and protest anthems as the crowd waved the Tricolour

Mumbai: As a sea of citizens descended upon Dadar’s Shivaji Park on Sunday for a victory rally to celebrate Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, the city’s student organisations said they are planning to keep the momentum from the weeklong protests going by forming a coalition of student organisations. They have already set their eyes on the next targets: Gen Z’s other demands of curbing the privatisation of education, bringing about reforms in NEET, and scrapping National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, possibly with a big rally on Kranti Divas on Aug 9.A majority of the 8,000-10,000 participants of the victory rally made similar demands. Even as a palpable wave of euphoria and excitement filled the air and senior politicians took to the stage, many students spoke to TOI at the venue about the tangible reforms and policy changes they wish to see.

Two major issues dominated: systemic educational stagnation and the financial strain imposed by govt’s mandatory E20 ethanol-blended petrol policy.“We want transparency over things like E20 and ethanol blending, which is ruining our cars,” said Vishal Mistry (22), who works as an accountant. “Maintenance costs for the upkeep of cars are going through the roof. Besides, I want serious education reforms. Children still carry 10-15kg bags with textbooks that are the exact same ones I used in my childhood. We should have tablets and electronics to reduce the physical load on children. I received any actual and practical skills training only after I started working. There should be skills training integrated directly into colleges and schools.”Postgraduate students said major policy shifts affecting energy and education ought to involve direct public participation rather than top-down execution. “Before decisions like ethanol blending are taken, there should be public votes on the subject—like referendums,” said Wade Reeves (23), a master’s student in child psychology. “I want the decentralisation of medical education. There is no need for there to be one ultra high stakes exam. It is also inequitable in terms of the costs of books and study material for those of lesser means”.Yug Bijlani (19), a junior college student, said “Poverty, homelessness and most importantly, roads are the places I want to see the country do better in. Roads are something that all of us use and there is simply no reason why it should be pothole ridden.”Multiple students pointed out how politicians need to take more accountability and be qualified about what they are talking about.Activist Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, said a coalition of student organisations can keep highlighting such issues. “We organise a peaceful rally every year on Aug 9 from the Tilak statue at Chowpatty to August Kranti Maidan to pay homage to the martyrs of the freedom struggle. But this year, we plan to do it with a difference. We are planning to seek participation from youngsters and want the rally to highlight their issues,” he said. While the agenda is not finalised yet, it will be planned and announced in the next few days.Acknowledging that “we are not sure how the ongoing protest will take shape over the next few days”, Tushar Gandhi said they are waiting to hear from the core Cockroach Janta Party team before taking a call.Aamir Kazi from All India Students’ Federation agreed that the Centre is yet to meet many of the demands and said they want to ensure that the youth movement does not fizzle out. “We are still contemplating the way forward for the movement. There are several issues concerning the youth that we plan to focus on in the coming days. The demands for curbing privatisation of education, scrapping National Testing Agency and NEP, and bringing reforms in NEET need to be taken up. We plan to raise these issues at the Kranti Divas rally. We are hoping for large participation from the youth.”Some organisations, such as Chhatrabharti Vidyarthi Sanghatna, plan to continue to highlight local issues through their ongoing protests against the state govt. “We have been demanding the resignation of the state’s school education minister, Dada Bhuse, over the teacher eligibility test paper leak. We also do not want MPSC exams to go online as planned by the state. With or without the coalition, we plan to continue our protest for these issues,” said Leslie D’Souza of the Sanghatna.

Mumbai: West Cyber Police on July 21 registered an FIR against a point-of-sale (POS) operator for allegedly selling several mule SIM cards, also called Ghost SIMs, which he procured in the names of several people using forged documents and sold to cyber fraudsters.The cyber team gathered information about a person identified as Prathamesh Chorat, who was known to be a POS operator and who allegedly managed to procure SIMs using forged documents of people, fraudulently procured, who would have submitted them for any other banking-related purposes.These SIMs were used by fraudsters for committing organised crimes, contacting citizens online, luring or threatening them, and gaining their trust.

“Fraudsters exploit the telecom point-of-sale (POS) system in India through rogue retail agents and fake customer identities to obtain illicit SIM cards. These illegally activated mobile lines, often referred to as ‘Ghost SIMs,’ are subsequently used by cybercrime syndicates to bypass biometric security checkpoints, orchestrate financial scams, and establish untraceable bank accounts,” said a cyber police officer.In the complaint, West region cyber police constable VS Dighe said: “For daily cybercrime operations, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs has provided a centralised platform, the National Cybercrime Reporting Platform (NCRP), for registering cybercrime complaints. On this portal, various complainants from across the country contact Cyber Helpline number 1930 regarding their cyber fraud and register complaints. In these complaints, information about bank accounts used for fraud, mobile numbers, and held amounts is available.”Cyber fraudsters were committing organised crimes, contacting citizens online, luring or threatening them, and gaining their trust. “The extorted money is then transferred to various bank accounts. During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused are running an Organised Cyber Crime Syndicate by appointing field agents to collect original bank accounts and original SIM cards (original – bank accounts or SIM cards in another person’s name) from various parts of the country,” said Dighe in the FIR.After analysing the crimes registered and complaints on the NCCR portal, and reviewing the data received from I4C-NCCR, it was revealed that some SIM cards used in the said crimes and complaints were sold by specific POS agents in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. “Therefore, the following information about the POS agents who sold the said SIM cards was obtained from the respective mobile service provider companies. Upon searching the mentioned mobile number on the NCCR portal, it was found that complaints have been filed against them in West Bengal, Pune and Mumbai. From this, it was revealed that the aforementioned POS holder-operator is supplying mule SIM cards to cybercriminals,” said the cyber police.During the probe, the cyber police learnt that during the period Jan 2025 to May 2026, the suspected POS identified as Chorat obtained mule SIM cards in the names of various people and sold them to cyber fraudsters, thereby committing fraud. “They then transfer money from them by offering various deceptive inducements such as share market investment, digital arrest, task fraud and other similar schemes. During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused were running an Organised Cyber Crime Syndicate by appointing field agents to collect original bank accounts and original SIM cards (original – bank accounts or SIM cards in another person’s name) from various parts of the country,” said the officer.