(Hanoi = Yonhap News) Correspondent Park Jin-hyung = The Cockroach People's Party (CJP), a 'Generation Z civil movement group' protesting against suspicions of unfairness by the Election Commission in India, continued its protest in the capital New Delhi for the second day despite the authorities' forcible suppression.
On the 11th (local time), Ajinkya Shinde, a member of the CJP leadership, announced on
He emphasized, "The government has made a big mistake by arresting our leaders and suppressing democracy. We will continue protesting tomorrow and the day after tomorrow until Gyanesh Kumar (Election Commission Chairman) resigns. We will take to the streets."
Accordingly, when protestors attempted to gather at Jantar Mantar, a government-designated protest site in New Delhi, following the previous day, the authorities blocked the gathering of protesters by arresting them in various places.
On this day, the government deployed approximately 30,000 police and other security personnel throughout the Delhi metropolitan area, including the Jantar Mantar area, to prevent CJP protests. Additionally, citizens were advised to refrain from unnecessary travel, saying that traffic congestion may occur on major roads and intersections.
Opposition parties, including the main opposition Indian National Congress (INC), whose former leader Rahul Gandhi was arrested while attempting to march to the Election Commission in New Delhi on the 7th, also decided to resume protests from the 12th.
Three leaders, including founder Abhijit Deepke (31), co-founder Saurabh Das, and spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka, who were arrested by police at the Delhi airport ahead of the New Delhi protests the previous day, were released by the court on this day.
They were released on the condition that they "not harm peace for the next one year," a CJP official said.
The CJP originally planned to hold a large-scale protest at Jantar Mantar the previous day, but the government deployed a large number of police and other forces to control traffic and detained protesters in large numbers, preventing them from gathering.
As a result, more than 2,000 people were arrested in Delhi and about 400 in Mumbai the previous day, an anonymous Home Ministry official told Reuters.
In response, Tamin Al-Khitan, spokesperson for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), expressed concern about the mass detentions in a statement and urged the Indian government to "fully respect and guarantee the right to peaceful assembly."
It was reported that most of those arrested later were released late the night before.
Recently, the CJP has been carrying out a campaign demanding the resignation of Election Commission Chairman Kumar and strengthening the independence and transparency of the Election Commission in relation to the suspicion that the Election Commission changed the voter list to favor Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling People's Party (BJP).
In the process of revising the voter list, Chairman Kumar is suspected of deleting a large number of opposition party supporters from the list and increasing the number of ruling party supporters, despite receiving complaints and complaints from the other two election committee members about 10 times.
In the process of revising the list, the National Election Commission deleted about 130 million people, including about 63 million voters who had moved their residence, about 30 million whose whereabouts were unknown, and 28 million people who had died.
In response, the National Election Commission's position is that these numbers refer to those classified as problematic during the drafting stage of the voter list, and that voters who were incorrectly deleted can be re-registered on the list.
