India: Leader of the “Cockroach Movement” released again

The founder of the “cockroach movement” in India is free again. This was announced by his lawyer. Police arrested Abhijeet Dipke and two other movement leaders on Saturday ahead of mass protests in the capital New Delhi. Now they are free again, said the lawyer, on the condition that they “do not disturb public order for a year.”

The three men were arrested on the plane the day before immediately after landing in New Delhi. The “Cockroach Movement” called for mass protests that day to demand the resignation of the head of the State Election Commission. The Indian authorities deployed a massive police force against the protesters to prevent a mass rally. According to the PTI news agency, more than 20,000 security forces cordoned off central New Delhi. In addition, dozens of metro stations were closed and more than 200 train connections were canceled.

Addressing a press conference, CJP politician Ajinkya Shinde said police had arrested more than 15,000 protesters. "We will come back, even if they fill all the prisons," he announced. When asked by the AFP news agency, the police initially did not want to comment on the arrests. The newspaper “The Hindu” reported that around 5,000 were arrested. Several media outlets reported that their journalists had been temporarily detained.

The background to the protest is the controversial examination of electoral rolls. According to the electoral commission, only duplicate entries and names of people who are not eligible to vote should be removed. Opposition and critics complain that the test could deprive millions of people of their right to vote in favor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party.

According to media reports, more than 133 million names have already been removed from the lists during the voter roll audit. Most of them are said to be members of minorities and especially Muslims. India is the world's largest democracy with 1.4 billion inhabitants.