CJP’s Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka: India’s ‘cockroach’ leaders jailed after holding protest
Two top leaders of India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) have been sent to jail for five days after being arrested for allegedly trespassing at a protest site in Delhi.
Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka appeared before a magistrate on Wednesday after being detained at Jantar Mantar, a longstanding venue for demonstrations that police recently removed from the city’s list of authorised protest sites.
The activists climbed a locked gate and crossed barricades to enter the site on Tuesday.
The GenZ-led movement has been protesting for days seeking electoral reforms and the resignation of India’s top election official over allegations of vote fraud – charges the poll panel denies.
Police accused Das, Ranka and their fellow activist Ajinkya Shinde of trespassing, breaching a peace bond, violating prohibitory orders and obstructing public officials – charges they deny.
Delhi’s Special Executive Magistrate Court remanded Das and Ranka to five days in judicial custody to help the police further investigate the charges, while Shinde was released on a personal bond.
Das and Ranka have the option of seeking bail from a higher court.
The arrests follow an earlier round of detentions over the weekend, when CJP leaders were taken into preventive custody ahead of planned demonstrations in the capital before being released by a magistrate.
The CJP, which is a pressure group and not an official political party, has been demanding the resignation of India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, over alleged irregularities in electoral rolls. Kumar and the Election Commission has denied wrongdoing.
Delhi police have name three other sites in the city – Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground – as protest venues.
The CJP says the move will make demonstrations less visible and harder for protesters to make their voices heard.
On Tuesday, CJP founder Abjijeet Dipke and other leaders shared videos showing Das and Ranka entering Jantar Mantar. Footage showed the two – along with others – climbing over police barricades while chanting slogans and holding the Indian flag.
“You cannot denotify the resistance,” Dipke wrote on X.
Following their detention, Ratna Singh, the head of the CJP’s legal team, alleged that the activists were denied access to lawyers for several hours and were taken to Parliament Street Police Station in a private vehicle at about 03:00 local time [21:30 GMT on Tuesday].
