Opposition leaders, activists and journalists detained as Delhi police block ‘cockroach’ protests

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Opposition leaders, student activists and journalists were detained as police launched a sweeping crackdown to thwart protests against India’s election chief in the capital Delhi on Saturday.

Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee and Pinarayi Vijayan, former chief ministers of Delhi, West Bengal and Kerala states, respectively, were held alongside Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, leaders of the youth-dominated Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Student leader Neha Bora, communist figure Brinda Karat, and economist and activist Jean Drèze were also among the demonstrators taken into custody.

The CJP, which led the protests that forced the resignation of India’s education minister earlier this year, and the All India Students Association had called for demonstrations on Saturday to demand the removal of Gyanesh Kumar, the chief election commissioner, who they accused of controversially revising voter rolls to benefit prime minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party.

But the police refused permission for the demonstrations citing security concerns, insufficient notice, and alleged violations of conditions imposed during earlier protests.

On Friday, home secretary Govind Mohan directed all states and federal territories to coordinate with the Delhi police and take preventative measures to stop protesters travelling to Delhi, according to The Hindu. He also called for real-time intelligence sharing between state agencies, transport authorities, and the Delhi police.

Police sources told the Indian Express that they had detained nearly 1,200 people overnight to deter the protests. They detained many more over the course of the day.

Some 27,000 police and paramilitary personnel were deployed to prevent protesters from gathering in central Delhi. They were reportedly ordered to stop demonstrators from getting to the primary protest site at Jantar Mantar and detain anyone who refused to turn back.

In central Delhi, metal barricades blocked roads and police stopped and checked vehicles.

As many as 45 metro stations were closed and more than 245 trains cancelled, severely disrupting public transport in and around the capital. Mobile internet services were suspended within a 4km radius of the main protest site from Friday night until Saturday night.

The three CJP leaders were detained at the Delhi airport before they could disembark their flight from Mumbai.

“We are here to be arrested, come and arrest us,” Mr Dipke was heard in a video telling police officers who had boarded the aircraft to detain him and his fellow leaders.

The party condemned the detention of its leaders and supporters as an attempt to cripple the protests and demanded their immediate release.

The party later announced that senior member Ajinkya Shinde would head the protests while the three leaders remained in custody.

Mr Kejriwal was detained while he was on his way to Jantar Mantar, while Ms Banerjee and several members of her Trinamool Congress party were taken away from outside her residence in the city, according to MP Saket Gokhale.

Ms Bora, activist Yogendra Yadav and lawyer Prashant Bhushan were detained as they were marching towards the protest site.

YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was detained at his home in Gurugram, while journalists from several media outlets, including Scroll, Newslaundry, Navbharat Times, and Reporter TV, were snatched from where they were covering the protests.

The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the police to release the detained journalists, return their equipment, and investigate reports of physical abuse against them.

The protests were triggered by allegations that changes made to electoral rolls had excluded millions of eligible voters and potentially affected election results. The revision had flagged more than 130 million names.

Opposition parties and critics say the latest revision, nearly two decades after the last, constitutes mass disenfranchisement to favour the BJP. They want the exercise scrapped ​and the old rolls reinstated.

The election commission says the ​numbers represent voter entries flagged during a draft revision in an exercise that is not complete, while those wrongly removed can enrol again.

BJP president Nitin Nabin accused the leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, and the CJP of trying to destabilise the country “at the behest of foreign forces” through the protests.

Mr Gandhi and other opposition leaders were detained during protests against Mr Kumar earlier in the week.

On Friday, opposition leaders, including Mr Gandhi, met president Droupadi Murmu to convey their concerns about the election commission and the revision of voter rolls, and to demand Mr Kumar’s removal.

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