Indian police detain Cockroach Janta Party founder ahead of youth protest
The founder of Indian youth movement, Abhijeet Dipke, and fellow leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were detained at Delhi airport on Saturday (Oct 10) ahead of a protest demanding the resignation of India's chief election commissioner.
· CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
NEW DELHI: Police in the Indian capital Delhi detained the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Abhijeet Dipke, on Saturday (Oct 10), ahead of a protest called by the youth movement demanding the resignation of the country’s chief election commissioner, the party said.
Local TV channels reported earlier that police officers met Dipke at the Delhi airport after he arrived from the financial capital Mumbai and asked him to call off the protest as authorities had banned it.
CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were also detained from their flight upon landing, the movement said in a statement.
Separately, CJP's legal team head Ratna Singh claimed in a video statement that she and three other lawyers were being detained, alleging that more than 25 police officers had surrounded their car without explaining why they were being held.
CNA Games
Guess Word
Crack the word, one row at a time
Buzzword
Create words using the given letters
Mini Sudoku
Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser
Mini Crossword
Small grid, big challenge
Word Search
Spot as many words as you can
Show More
Show Less
YouTuber and Indian influencer Dhruv Rathee, who had returned from Germany to take part in the youth protests, was detained at his residence in Gurugram on Saturday morning, The Times of India reported.
A police officer told the local media outlet that Rathee was taken into custody after refusing to heed warnings against attending the demonstration.
Police detained scores of protesters and their leaders on in the Indian capital on Saturday amid patrols by thousands of security forces, with travel and telecoms links suspended, in a lockdown to stop a youth protest asking the election chief to quit.
The protest by the "Cockroach" youth movement aimed to draw thousands of demonstrators against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.
"Long live the revolution," chanted some of the young protesters in central Delhi chased by police, who dragged scores of others into buses to be taken away, even as more arrived, a Reuters witness said.
"This is violating the rights of the people and the country will not tolerate this anymore," Yogendra Solanki, one of those being pushed into a bus, told Reuters.
DELHI LOCKED DOWN TO FOIL PROTEST
CJP condemned the "authoritarian detention" of its leaders, which it called a "pre-planned interception" aimed at crippling the leadership of Saturday's rally and demanded their immediate release.
Representatives of two digital media outlets said on X that police detained four of their reporters while covering the protest.
Some lawyers protesting outside the Supreme Court were also picked up, the president of its bar association posted on X.
There was no immediate comment from police on the detentions.
Elsewhere across the city of 20 million, 45 metro stations and markets were shut and mobile internet suspended in the central business district.
Police boarded buses to check for protesters after stopping them at points of entry into the city, with cars and other vehicles also subjected to checks, Reuters witnesses said.
Barricades and concrete blocks stopped traffic, while anti-riot vehicles mounted with tear gas guns were stationed on key routes, they said.
"Why is the prime minister so scared of the country's youth, the country's people?" Dipke had asked before leaving for Delhi.
"Why did you need to close all the railways, the metro, the internet has been closed, roads have been closed? ... this is nothing but fear," he told the ANI news agency in the financial capital of Mumbai.
The protesters aimed to gather at Jantar Mantar, a protest site designated by authorities in the heart of New Delhi, at 10 am, but security curbs delayed their schedule.
NEW CHALLENGE TO MODI
The protest, which the CJP called an effort to "Save Democracy", is planned as the biggest of a series of demonstrations launched last week after the Indian Express newspaper said Kumar's deputies had queried and disagreed with him over list revisions that dropped about 130 million voters.
That number exceeds the population of Japan.
Opposition parties have long accused the government of trying to fix voter lists to its advantage and were quick to resurrect the allegations following the report.
Kumar has not commented but the Election Commission and the BJP have denied the allegations.
The BJP says Modi's popularity and India's economic growth are key reasons for its electoral dominance and accuses opposition parties of misleading the country as they are unable to win elections.
Nonetheless, the near daily protests by opposition groups pose a new political challenge to Modi, just months after similar demonstrations forced his education minister to quit over exam paper leaks.
They also come months before a series of key state elections starting in early 2027.
On Friday, Delhi police said they had not given permission for the protest and violators would face the law, but the CJP stuck to its plan on grounds of exercising a fundamental right.
DELETIONS AFFECTED STATE POLLS, OPPOSITION ALLEGES
The protesters accuse the BJP of using the revision of voter lists to sway election results, in collusion with its appointees in the Election Commission, including Kumar.
Opposition parties say the voter deletions affected the outcome of some recent state elections won by the BJP, and have cast a shadow on elections in the world's largest democracy.
Election Commission data shows about 130 million names, have been deleted from voter lists during the verification exercise, including 63 million who relocated, 30 million who could not be traced, and 28 million dead.
The commission says the count represents voter entries flagged during the draft revision stage and voters wrongly removed can enroll again.
Newsletter
Morning Brief
Subscribe to CNA’s Morning Brief
An automated curation of our top stories to start your day.
Sign up for our newsletters
Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app