Breathing Space

MUSHROOM ROCK HAS probably witnessed many changes to its surrounding environment in its roughly 2-billion-year history. But 30 March 2025 was perhaps the first time it bore witness to a brutal police crackdown on a student protest to save the roughly hundred and sixty hectares of forested land around it. The rock, which gets its name due to its distinctive shape, sits inside the campus of the University of Hyderabad, in Kancha Gachibowli. Since 13 March, the students of the university—popularly known as Hyderabad Central University—have been protesting the Telangana government’s plan to auction off the land.

“More than fifty bulldozers entered the campus,” Diviya, a student at the university, told us. The Telangana Police, already stationed at the site, responded with force and dragged students away, beating them with lathis. Nihad Sulaiman, the general secretary of the HCU students’ union, was among those detained. He recalled how they were forcibly taken to a police station in a different part of the city, where they were detained until midnight. “One of the detained students was not even present at the site where the lathi charge happened,” Sulaiman said.

According to the students, the government’s actions were pre-planned. Since 30 March, there has been a constant police presence on campus. “The day when bulldozers entered was a Sunday and also Ugadi,” Diviya said, referring to the Telugu new year. “The following day was Eid. Both were court holidays.”