Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke at New Delhi’s airport on Oct. 10 and locked down central Delhi to block a banned protest against India’s chief election commissioner.
The rally targets a revision of voter lists that has removed more than 130 million names, according to Al Jazeera and ABC News. ABC described the youth-led movement as the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 12-year rule.
ABC reported, citing television coverage, that officers met Dipke after he flew in from Mumbai and told him to call off the protest. “I have come to be arrested, arrest me … I am not afraid of you guys,” Dipke said, according to that report. An officer replied: “No, this is not an arrest,” and asked him to cooperate.
The movement said party leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were also detained as they landed. The party called the detentions a “pre-planned interception” meant to cripple Saturday’s rally and demanded their release. Police have not been quoted in either report on why the three were stopped at the airport.
Police refused permission for a rally at Jantar Mantar, the usual protest site in the capital, saying the application came too late and that the party had broken undertakings given during earlier protests, Al Jazeera reported. Police warned of a forceful response if the ban was violated.
Authorities closed 57 metro stations from Friday night, cancelled several long-distance trains and suspended mobile internet within four kilometres of the protest area until Saturday night, the ANI news agency reported, as cited by Al Jazeera. India’s Supreme Court said on Friday that some trains must still run and that a blanket closure of metro stations was unlikely.
Al Jazeera separately reported that nearly 30,000 security personnel were deployed. ABC reported that police stopped buses and cars at entry points to search for protesters, and that anti-riot vehicles with tear gas launchers stood along key routes. Some protesters broke through cordons chanting slogans against Modi and election authorities before being detained, ABC said.
The party said at least 10,000 people had been detained across the country, including protesters travelling to Delhi by train. That figure has not been independently confirmed. Al Jazeera’s live coverage gave no exact count of those held in the capital.
“You can detain the people, you cannot detain the movement,” said Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students’ Association. Dipke wrote on X that the government preferred to “shut down the entire national capital” rather than allow a peaceful protest at a designated site.
The Election Commission says the revision removes duplicate and ineligible voters and aims to stop “foreign illegal immigrants” from voting. The commission and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party deny allegations of manipulation, and the party says the opposition is misleading the public because it cannot win elections, Al Jazeera reported.
Critics say the revision has fallen hardest on Muslims and other marginalised groups. The Indian Express reported that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s two fellow commissioners formally raised concerns at least 14 times in the past 10 months, Al Jazeera said. Protesters want Kumar to resign and the revision to end.
The Cockroach Janta Party began online in May as political satire after Chief Justice Surya Kant called unemployed youth “cockroaches”, Al Jazeera reported. Protests over exam paper leaks led Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign in July. ABC reported that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was briefly detained during days of protests. State elections, including in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, are due in early 2027.
For Canadians, Global Affairs Canada’s travel advisory for India tells travellers to exercise a high degree of caution nationwide and warns that demonstrations are frequent and “even peaceful demonstrations can turn violent at any time.” It advises avoiding areas with demonstrations and following local authorities’ instructions. Canadians with family or travel plans in Delhi may also face disrupted trains, metro service and mobile internet while the restrictions last.
Turnout, arrest numbers and any charges were not confirmed at the time of publication, and the story is developing.
Via Al Jazeera and ABC News.
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