India 'cockroach' leaders detained after entering barricaded protest site

India 'cockroach' leaders detained after entering barricaded protest site

Leaders of India's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were detained early on Tuesday after they entered a heavily guarded protest site and shouted slogans calling for the country's election chief to resign over a disputed revision of electoral rolls.

Party founder Abhijeet Dipke posted a video showing Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das being taken away from Jantar Mantar in Delhi, a historic observatory that is popular as a protest venue, by police.

The footage showed the two men, along with others, climbing over police barricades before chanting slogans while holding the Indian flag.

Opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi allege that the voter list revision helps his party, a claim rejected by both the party and the Election Commission.

Protests have continued for days, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Police have increased security across Delhi as protesters challenge restrictions on where demonstrations may be held.

Early on Tuesday, Dipke, Das and Ranka all shared videos showing Das and Ranka entering Jantar Mantar.

"You cannot denotify the resistance," Dipke wrote on X.

Das also posted a message saying the site had been "reclaimed" and that they were being detained.

It was not immediately clear where police had taken the leaders.

Ranka later appeared on an Instagram live broadcast from a police bus with other detainees, where they seemed cheerful and said they would not back down.

The detentions came a day after the federal home ministry announced that Jantar Mantar, long linked with public protests in Delhi, would no longer be a designated protest venue. Authorities instead named three alternative locations where demonstrations can be held with permission.

Before that decision, the CJP had met Delhi Police officials to seek permission for a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar and had warned that it would announce further demonstrations if it received no response.

"30 mins after we went to Delhi Police asking for a date when we can go to Jantar Mantar, Jantar Mantar was de-notified as a protest site," Ranka had earlier posted on X.

Most of the party leadership has been in Delhi in recent days. Dipke, however, had travelled to his hometown in Maharashtra after the death of his grandmother. He was among several CJP leaders detained ahead of a planned demonstration on Saturday and was released the next day.

The CJP had called for a protest at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, but authorities imposed sweeping security restrictions across the capital to stop demonstrators from reaching the site.

Several metro stations were shut, train services were disrupted and thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed.

Over the weekend, police detained and later released thousands of people, including several journalists. Some videos and photos from the protest show police dragging people, including women, by force and pushing them into buses.

Separately, opposition parties held a march in Delhi on Monday from Connaught Place, a major shopping district in the heart of the capital, to the Supreme Court.

The Congress, India's main opposition party, also petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday, challenging the Election Commission's voter revision exercise, which has led to tens of millions of names being removed from electoral rolls.

Critics say the exercise could exclude eligible voters and make it harder for them to prove their eligibility.

Anger over the revision exercise grew after The Indian Express reported that Kumar had ignored concerns raised by the two other election commissioners over changes to voter registration. The Election Commission has said its decisions were unanimous.

The current wave of demonstrations follows student-led protests earlier this year over irregularities in examinations. The CJP played a role in those protests, which ended with the resignation of federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in July.