India's 'Cockroach' leaders detained ahead of major protest

India's 'Cockroach' party says its leaders have been detained ahead of a major protest called by the collective. Protesters are calling for India's chief election commissioner to resign.

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke to land in New Delhi shortly ahead of protest over alleged voter list manipulation

Around 43,000 police and paramilitary personnel are deployed in the capital, reports say

Traffic and transport disruptions are expected

Here is our rolling coverage of developments from India on Saturday, October 10:

'Cockroach Party' founder Abhijeet Dipke has been detained

Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke has been detained by Delhi police, Indian media reported, as a preventative measure to block the planned protest against India's election chief in central Delhi.

According to reports by several media outlets, including India Today, authorities detained Dipke on board a flight after he landed in Delhi on Saturday morning. The news outlet quoted Dipke as saying, "I'm not afraid of you," while police officers urged him to cooperate.

The CJP's X handle soon released footage of the detention. "Shame on you Narendra Modi, Amit Shah," the caption read, referring to India's prime minister and home minister, respectively.

Authorities have also detained CJP's co-conveners Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, as well as the group's legal aid head, Ratna Singh.

The preventative arrests are part of a major crackdown on protesters this weekend.

Most of central Delhi, where the government is headquartered, is under an internet blackout and riddled with barricades, which authorities are using to identify and stop potential protesters.

BJP calls CJP, INDIA bloc 'anarchists'

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) National President Nitin Nabin held a press conference in New Delhi, denouncing the CJP and opposition party protests over voter list irregularities as an attempt to "create a highly dangerous and serious situation in the country."

He described the INDIA bloc of opposition parties and the Cockroach movement as "two anarchic groups."

"Your 'anarchist competition,' vying to see who can create more instability in the country, will not succeed," Nabin said, accusing both groups of "a plot to destabilize the country."

"I want to say that you are undertaking these efforts, driven by your political agendas, at the behest of foreign forces," he said without elaborating on who the foreign forces were.

YouTuber Dhruv Rathee has been detained, reports say

Popular YouTuber Dhruv Rathee has been detained by the police ahead of the Jantar Mantar protest, according to the CJP and Indian media reports.

"Dhruv Rathee has been detained. The Dictator is TERRIFIED of young people who question its wrongdoings and refuse to stay silent," the CJP wrote on X, referring to Prime Minister Modi.

According to reports, Rathee was detained at his home in Gurugam. Earlier this week, the CJP officially launched Rathee as part of its "fight to save democracy" campaign.

The Germany-based YouTuber participated in a CJP protest in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Thursday.

CJP legal head Ratna Singh is also reported to have been detained at her home in New Delhi on Saturday.

Hundreds of Cockroach protesters detained, says police

The Delhi Police has said in a statement that around 500 people were detained on Saturday as they arrived for the protest called by the Cockroach Janta Party, news agency ANI reported.

Around 500 people coming in different groups from various locations have been detained," ANI quoted the statement from Delhi Police as saying.

The police added that 50 more people were arrested separately and described them as "anti-social elements with criminal antecedents" who had been picked up to "so that they do not disturb" public order or "incite trouble."

Visuals aired by Indian news channels earlier showed police in central Delhi chasing young protesters before forcing them into vehicles and taking them away.

India protest: Why do protesters want Gyanesh Kumar to resign?

After India's education minister, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) movement has Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in its crosshairs.

Here is a ten-point breakdown of the controversy surrounding the top election official:

The protests concern a contentious, nationwide voter-verification exercise — called the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) — which began last year. Around 130 million names have been removed so far from electoral rolls under the process.

Kumar heads the three-member Election Commission of India (ECI) overseeing the SIR process.

Last Month, The Indian Express newspaper published a report alleging differences within the ECI over decisions related to the SIR.

According to The Indian Express, Kumar's two fellow election commissioners raised at least 14 formal objections over a 10-month period regarding voter registrations, deletions and restorations, as well as control of electoral roll data, but their concerns were allegedly not taken into consideration

The report said that in one objection, one of the commissioners complained that the ECI had acted against the written advice of two commissioners and claimed its action was "unauthorized and illegal."

The report sparked a political storm with protests calling for Kumar's resignation, for allegedly undermining the poll body’s credibility.

The ECI has maintained that all its decisions were lawful, saying that differing views were a routine part of the decision-making process.

Kumar is yet to address the allegations against him.

Opposition leaders and critics say that those removed from the voter lists include a large number of minority voters.

They accuse Modi's BJP of using the exercise as a tool to secure future electoral gains and question the ECI's independence. The ECI says the SIR removes deceased, relocated and duplicate voters and helps prevent the inclusion of "foreign illegal immigrants."

Delhi police detain people at protest — ANI

Police have already detained some protesters who had started gathering at Jantar Mantar for the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protest, ANI news agency reported.

On Friday the Delhi Police said that Section 163 of India's criminal procedure law had been enforced in the New Delhi area, prohibiting all forms of assembly or protest.

Meanwhile, Indian news agencies reported that police had heightened security across the capital on Saturday, with flag marches and mock drills being conducted at several locations.

Entry and exit gates at several metro stations have also been closed, according to reports.

ANI also reported that spike strips had been deployed to deter protesters from moving through certain areas.

WATCH — Will Cockroach protest 'Season 2' take off?

The protest is being dubbed by some as "Season 2" of the Cockroach movement in India. The first wave of protests culminated with the resignation of India's education minister over exam irregularities, a rare concession by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP party.

DW's Shalu Yadav takes a closer look at how the Indian government is preparing for CJP's latest protest call in this report:

CJP's Abhijeet Dipke set to arrive in Delhi

The Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) founder, Abhijeet Dipke, was due to land at Delhi's main airport on Saturday morning as the movement plans to hold a mass protest calling for India’s Chief Election Commissioner to step down over sweeping voter roll revisions, despite being denied permission by police.

Police and paramilitary forces, which local media reported numbered around 43,000 personnel, were deployed ahead of the protest. Multiple layers of yellow metal barricades blocked the concrete-grey roads leading to the Jantar Mantar protest site.

On Friday, authorities also ordered the closure of more than 50 metro stations and canceled many trains bound for two major railway stations in the capital.

But India's top court later directed the government to not completely halt train services and said there should be no blanket closure of metro stations.

The Supreme Court stressed the "principle of proportionality," urging authorities to allow the transportation services in a regulated manner to avoid public inconvenience.

"Take measures only to the extent necessary to prevent them. But that does not mean you should use a hammer to kill a fly. That principle must be kept in mind," legal news website Bar and Bench reported the court as saying.

On Saturday, Dipke denounced the Modi government over extensive restrictions.

"Modi has accepted defeat even before our protest has begun," the CJP chief wrote on X ahead of his arrival in the capital.

"The mass crackdown on protesters and the shutdown of Delhi are not signs of strength, but of a leader terrified of his own people."

Election protests: Pressure mounts on poll chief, challenge to PM Modi

The CJP is not the only group calling for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation.

India's bloc of opposition parties, led by Congress' Rahul Gandhi, has been carrying out a sustained campaign against Kumar in recent days with its own protest marches.

The country has seen dramatic visuals emerge from Delhi's key corridor of political power, which showed leading opposition MPs, including Gandhi, being carried away to detention buses by uniformed police officials as they tried to dig their heels in.

The ire against India's election chief — the head of India's independent Election Commission — is turning into one of the biggest public and political challenges for Modi in his three-term rule. Opposition and critics allege that a mass deletion of tens of millions of voters from India's electoral rolls benefits Modi's Prime Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a charge the party denies.

Welcome to our coverage!

This is Dharvi Vaid Dhulia from DW's studio in New Delhi and this is a special edition of our daily India news blog.

As the early morning hours tick away, a countdown to a rally against India's top poll official over alleged voter list irregularities has begun in the heart of the world's largest democracy.

What's happening?

India's 'Cockroaches' are headed once again for Jantar Mantar — the same protest site where the online satirical movement sprung to the mainstream as a youth-led pressure group in July after it forced the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's then education minister.

The police have denied the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) permission to hold the demonstration but the group's leaders are heralding people from all over the country to converge at Jantar Mantar, calling the protest a "fundamental right".

A showdown between police and protesters seems imminent.

New Delhi, particularly its central areas, have essentially been turned into a fortress with a heavy security blanket — including thousands of paramilitary personnel — a rare mobile internet blackout, train cancellations and warnings from the police against any protest assembly.

The security arrangements come as memory is still fresh of a clash between youth demonstrators and police during the July Cockroach protest. Police used batons, tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns to disperse the agitating crowd. Several injuries were reported as the protesters alleged police brutality, while the police said it used force only after the protests stopped being peaceful.

India's Cockroach movement alleges police brutality

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