Leaders of the Gen-Z-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), including its founder Abhijeet Dipke, were among hundreds of protesters detained in Delhi on Saturday, according to the group, as it pressed ahead with a demonstration demanding electoral reforms.
The CJP said Dipke — who launched the movement in May — was held with other leaders shortly after landing in Delhi. Tens of thousands of security personnel had been deployed and roads barricaded ahead of the protest, which the group had insisted would go ahead regardless.
Delhi Police has not commented on the detentions. It had refused permission for the demonstration to take place at Jantar Mantar, a landmark in the Indian capital.
The group, which is not registered as a political party in India, is seeking electoral reforms just months before crucial state elections. It has also demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of manipulating voters’ lists — claims the Election Commission has denied.
Under Kumar’s leadership, the commission has undertaken a mammoth exercise to update electoral rolls nationwide, describing it as a routine process to weed out dead, duplicate or ineligible voters. In many states, however, the exercise has been shrouded in controversy, with tens of thousands of people alleging they were wrongly removed.
The CJP — along with opposition parties — accuses Kumar of favouring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the way the electoral rolls are being updated. Both the Election Commission and the BJP have denied this.
Before arriving in Delhi, Dipke said: “If you think you can stop us by threatening us with jail or trying to intimidate us with the fear of imprisonment, you are mistaken.”
He and two other leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were detained on their flight from Mumbai on Saturday. The group claimed the three men had been taken to an undisclosed location. Delhi Police have not commented.
Ajinkya Shinde, the CJP’s new designated leader while the others remain in detention, released a video telling protesters: “If Delhi Police tries to stop you, wherever they stop you will become your Jantar Mantar.”
Student activist Neha Bora, who was also detained by Delhi Police, urged demonstrators to “hold the line”.
The large number of protesters expected to descend on Delhi were unable to get anywhere close to Jantar Mantar because of the heavy security presence and road blocks. Announcements asking people to co-operate with the police could be heard across the city.
One protester, Sabika Muzaffar, told the BBC that she and her mother had expected to be detained. “On the way to the protest site, instead of reciting hymns and verses as we usually do, my mother and I were rote learning our lawyer’s number,” she said, adding that showing up to protest was “her way of defending the country and its democracy”. A few minutes after speaking to the BBC, she was taken away by police.
Several trains to and from major Delhi stations had been cancelled and dozens of metro stations were closed from Friday night. Buses packed with detained protesters were seen being driven away from the protest site.
The CJP first emerged as a major protest movement during weeks of demonstrations over the summer demanding education reforms and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The group stemmed from a joke by Dipke in response to a remark by India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant, who had likened jobless youngsters to “cockroaches”. He later said the comments had been misinterpreted.
Dipke, who previously worked with the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), had just completed a master’s degree at Boston University when he posted a question on X in May: “What if all cockroaches come together?” The post went viral and the CJP was born, with momentum building around a movement that tapped into anger over unemployment, exam paper leaks and government accountability.
In July, Dipke watched from the stage as the five-week-long protest ended in celebration after the resignation of India’s education minister.
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