Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke was detained by Delhi Police after his flight from Mumbai landed in the national capital on Saturday, ahead of the party’s proposed demonstration against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Footage recorded inside the aircraft showed women police personnel detaining Dipke along with CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka. Dipke was heard telling the police, “I have come here to be arrested. Arrest me. I am not afraid of you.”
When an officer asked him to cooperate and said the action was not an arrest, Dipke requested permission to take his bag.
The CJP condemned the detentions and described them as a violation of the right to freedom of movement. The party sought the immediate and unconditional release of Dipke, Das and Ranka.
The proposed protest at Jantar Mantar concerns allegations of voter-list manipulation during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, as well as changes linked to Form 6, which is used for voter registration.
Dhruv Rathee, Ratna Singh also detained
YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, who travelled to India from Germany to join the CJP leaders, was detained from his residence in Sector 56, Gurugram, on Saturday morning. Rathee, 32, has more than 33 million YouTube subscribers, 19 million Instagram followers and 3.3 million followers on X.
About 50 Delhi Police personnel came to detain Rathee, according to the details available.
Ratna Singh, the head of the CJP’s legal cell, also posted a video alleging that police personnel arrived at her home in the morning and stopped her from leaving. She said that when she sat in her car, a group of policemen surrounded the vehicle, but she was subsequently allowed to leave.
“Cops didn’t give me any reason for detention,” Singh said in the video recorded from her car.
Over 400 detained ahead of protest
More than 400 people were detained overnight ahead of the proposed demonstration. Hundreds of train services were cancelled, while dozens of metro stations were shut.
The Centre deployed more than 20,000 personnel from the police and Central Armed Police Forces to maintain law and order in the national capital.
Delhi Police denied permission for the protest, citing the late submission of the application and alleged violations of rules during an earlier demonstration.
Police said the application was received on October 7, only three days before the planned protest, whereas applications under the applicable rules must be submitted at least 10 days in advance.
The CJP is a Gen-Z youth protest movement whose sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar over the paper leak in the national medical entrance examination led to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation in July.
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