In brief
Abhijeet Dipke, the 25‑year‑old founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, was detained by Delhi police as supporters gathered to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The protest, centred on concerns over a voter‑roll revision, drew hundreds of activists and was met with heavy security, police seizures of Central Park and a closed Jantar Mantar protest site. Dipke’s arrest follows a repeated pattern of detentions of the movement’s leaders amid escalating restrictions by authorities. Despite the crackdown, the party vows to continue public demonstrations and calls on the crowd to raise the national flag in smaller groups if large gatherings are prohibited. Opposition politicians also face arrests and have called for the reopening of major protest venues while the government defends its actions as maintaining order.
Abhijeet Dipke, the 25‑year‑old founder of India’s Cockroach Janta Party, was hauled into a police vehicle on Friday night in Delhi, a move that came just before a planned march demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The protest, aimed at protesting a large voter‑list revision known as the Special Intensive Revision, drew hundreds of activists to Connaught Place. Police sealed off Central Park, the intended site, and deployed thousands of officers and paramilitary troops to block access.
The movement’s core claim is that the revision excludes valid voters and favours the ruling party. The Election Commission denies the allegation, saying it is simply cleaning the rolls of ineligible, deceased and duplicate names.
Dipke’s arrest, the second this week, follows a prior incident where the police boarded his plane shortly after it landed, preventing him from reaching a different demonstration. He was released the next day but has now been taken to an undisclosed location, with his legal counsel denied access.
The crackdown extended beyond Dipke. Two of the party’s other leaders were also detained last weekend and later jailed for five days after returning to a restricted protest site at Jantar Mantar, a venue that police removed from the list of approved locations.
While large turnouts were suppressed, dozens of supporters were still taken into custody during the fringe of the evening. Though a few were injured, police largely held back in the early hours before dispersing the crowd as darkness fell.
Opposition politicians such as Rahul Gandhi have also faced detentions while attempting to march to the Commission’s headquarters and have taken their complaints to the President and the Supreme Court. The Home Minister has defended the Commission’s independence, calling the opposition’s claims baseless.
The movement’s momentum, however, continues. If the founders remain in custody, the party says it will keep holding smaller, dispersed protests, urging supporters to wave the tricolour flag in groups of fewer than five and post the photos online.
