Lucknow, July 24 -- Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and the party's former national president Murli Manohar Joshi has called the grievance of protesting students in Delhi "genuine" and said it was "painful" to see them "brutally mishandled". He also said that "such use of force shall alienate a large section of Indian society from the national goal of Viksit Bharat". Joshi's remarks come amid the ongoing student protests in New Delhi over the alleged NEET paper leaks and the police action against demonstrators. Joshi, 92, a former Union human resource development minister, in a bilingual (English and Hindi) post on his X said: "It is painful to see young students from different parts of the country assembled for days on the streets of New Delhi". Joshi, who had been a Union minister thrice and former MP from Varanasi and Kanpur, further said: "Their anxieties and concerns regarding the examination system are genuine and must be handled with empathy and a desire to find a lasting solution". He said: "I fervently hope that this is not treated merely as a law-and-order issue to be tackled through the use of force. It is very painful to see that even young girls were brutally mishandled. Such use of force shall alienate large sections of Indian society from the national goal of Viksit Bharat"....