DELHI police yesterday detained Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), on his way to a flag-waving protest in Connaught Place, as thousands of police and paramilitary personnel blocked the gathering.
More than 20 officers had earlier served Dipke a notice at his home in Jhandewalan barring the march. Police later surrounded him and bundled him into a police car as supporters tried to block it.
Neha Bora, leader of the All India Students’ Association, was detained at Mandi House.
Officers ringed the closed Central Park, backed by tear gas and riot-control vehicles, and the 200 to 300 who reached the area were held back and circled the park waving the tricolour.
Dipke had urged supporters who could not reach the capital to raise the flag in their own towns and cities.
The movement was born in May after India’s chief justice likened unemployed young people to cockroaches, and by late July its Instagram account had passed 25 million followers, more than twice the BJP’s.
Tens of thousands of students took to the streets over a leaked medical entrance exam sat by some two million candidates, and an estimated 20,000 marched on Parliament on 20 July, where police met them with batons, tear gas and pellet guns.
Seven weeks of protest forced the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The CJP is now demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, an independent inquiry into a voter roll revision that has struck off more than 130 million names, and restoration of the old rolls.
The commission and government deny favouring the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party despite overwhelming evidence of targeting Muslims and other minorities who have been under constant attack by the ruling party and its allies.
Since protests over the rolls began on 25 September, thousands have rallied at Freedom Park in Bengaluru and in Mumbai, and the CJP has returned to the streets of Delhi after every crackdown.
Last Saturday, more than 40,000 security personnel were deployed as police pulled Dipke and fellow organisers Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka off their plane, shut 43 metro stations, cut mobile internet and turned stadiums into detention centres, detaining more than 7,000 people by one count.
Human Rights Watch said police beat protesters and dragged them through the streets, and a journalist was slapped and struck with a rifle butt the next day.
Three women journalists have accused officers of sexual harassment.
‘We are not backing down. We are returning with full strength!’ Das said afterwards.
On Wednesday he and Ranka were jailed for five days after they raised the flag at Jantar Mantar, now closed to protesters, and yesterday’s march was called partly in their support.
