CJP Founder Abhijit Deepke Detained
Police have detained Abhijit Deepke, founder and convener of India’s Kokroach Janata Party (CJP), along with two other party leaders while he was travelling to Delhi to join a protest.
A police team boarded his flight after it arrived at Delhi airport on Saturday morning and detained him. CJP leaders Saurabh Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who were travelling with him, were also detained.
According to Indian media outlet NDTV, Deepke began livestreaming on Instagram when police officers entered the aircraft. An argument broke out between the officers and CJP leaders, who questioned why the police had not waited for them to disembark.
In the video, Deepke can be heard telling female police officers, “You could have waited until we got off. Arrest us; we are not afraid.”
Deepke travelled from Mumbai to Delhi on Saturday morning to lead the protest at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
In a statement, the CJP condemned the detention of Deepke, Das and Ranka, describing it as an “authoritarian detention”. The party alleged that the leaders were deliberately detained to cripple its leadership before the peaceful protest began. It demanded their immediate and unconditional release.
Earlier, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee and Ratna Singh, head of the CJP’s legal cell, were also reportedly detained at their residences. The report said they were detained to prevent them from joining the protest.
Meanwhile, Delhi Police detained more than 400 suspected protesters from various parts of the capital overnight. On Friday, police said permission for the CJP’s protest had been denied because the organisers had not applied within the stipulated time.
Strict restrictions have been imposed across Delhi ahead of the demonstration. Forty-five metro stations have been closed, and numerous trains have been cancelled. The central government has deployed more than 20,000 police and central armed police personnel to maintain law and order.
