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.
Indian police detained Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), at Delhi airport on Saturday, ahead of a youth protest demanding the resignation of India's Chief Election Commissioner. CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were also arrested upon landing in Delhi. Ratna Singh, the party's legal team head, claimed in a video that she and three other lawyers were being detained by over 25 police officers who surrounded their car without explaining the reason.
YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, who had returned from Germany for the protests, was detained at his residence in Gurugram after refusing to cease participation in the demonstration. Central Delhi was under tight security with thousands of police and paramilitary personnel deployed, 57 metro stations closed, several long-distance trains cancelled, and markets shut ahead of the planned protest.
Mobile internet services were suspended within a 4km radius of the protest site. The protest aimed to call for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, who allegedly manipulated voter lists to favor Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The protests began last week after The Indian Express reported that Kumar's deputies had raised objections to a revision process which removed around 130 million names from voter lists.
Opposition parties accused the government of electoral roll manipulation, claims denied by the Election Commission and the BJP.
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