Sonam Wangchuk's health deteriorated on the fifth day of his hunger strike at the Cockroach Janata Party protest at Jantar Mantar on Thursday, but the activist has a more immediate concern — finding a pair of wired noise-cancelling Bose earphones.

Despite his blood sugar level dropping to 60 and his blood pressure remaining low, Wangchuk wrote on X, "I am still fine, but it's very noisy here," appealing to people to help him find a pair of Bose QuietComfort 20 wired noise-cancelling earphones after he lost his own during travel.

"The model is so old that it's discontinued and nowhere available for sale," Wangchuk wrote, adding that he would be willing to pay an appropriate price for a replacement. He clarified that he was looking specifically for the wired model, not Bluetooth earphones.

Sharing Wangchuk's health update, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke claimed the activist's condition was "continuously deteriorating" and warned that the government would be responsible if anything happened to him. He also reiterated the demand for Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation.

Dipke also alleged that Delhi Police personnel assaulted two youths who tried to set up a library at the protest venue and threw away books, including those on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Bhagat Singh. Demanding the suspension of ACP Ajay Sharma, he accused the officer of insulting the two historical figures and questioned why police had acted against students "who only wanted people to read books at the protest site". He further claimed the students were later asked to produce proof that they had been assaulted.

The CJP founder held an interaction titled "Chai Pe Charcha with Cockroaches", describing it as an opportunity to gather feedback on "how we can make this movement better and bigger". Wangchuk's wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, also visited the protest site during the day.

Six students associated with the All India Students' Association (AISA) continued their indefinite hunger strike from a separate stage at Jantar Mantar.

The organisation said the students’ condition had worsened, with Danish's blood sugar level dropping to 50 mg/dL, Deepak Kumar Verma's to 59 mg/dL, Manish's and Aameen's to 63 mg/dL each, and Neha's and Hrishikesh's to 68 mg/dL. It said most of the students were at risk of losing consciousness but remained determined to continue the fast until Pradhan resigned.

The CJP protest, launched on June 20 over alleged irregularities in the examination system, including NEET, has drawn support from several political leaders and civil society members, including CPI(M) General Secretary M A Baby, senior CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat, CPI General Secretary D Raja, social activist Yogendra Yadav, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, CPI leader Annie Raja, transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj and TMC MP Sagarika Ghose.

Addressing the gathering, CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya described the protest as a national issue concerning the future of India's youth and argued that the demand for Pradhan's resignation was ultimately about accountability.

"We are not seeking resignation because we like it. We are seeking resignation because there should be some accountability," he said.

Recalling how former railway ministers, including Lal Bahadur Shastri and Nitish Kumar, accepted moral responsibility and resigned, Bhattacharya remarked, "Now, the railway minister has become the reel minister."

He called for students, workers, farmers and climate activists to unite against authoritarianism, alleging that the ruling dispensation treated the Constitution as a "dead document", while "for us, it is alive". He described Pradhan's resignation as only one part of a broader democratic struggle.

Among those who visited the protest site was RTI activist Nikhil Dey, who recalled spending several nights at Jantar Mantar during campaigns for the Right to Information Act and the employment guarantee law, describing the venue as "a home" for people's movements.

"Jantar Mantar is the people's Parliament. The people are on the streets asking only one thing -- hear our voice," he said, congratulating the protesters for "bringing back the voice of this place".

Drawing a parallel with the RTI movement's demand for transparency in public spending, Dey said the protesters were now seeking accountability over examination irregularities.

"They asked then, 'Give an account of our money'. Today, you are asking, 'Give an account of the NEET paper'," he said.