Indian voter list row: Protests against polls chief continue

Police detained protesters in Delhi for the second day yesterday as sporadic protests broke out demanding India’s election chief quit, and a court ordered the release of “cockroach” movement founder Abhijeet Dipke and two other senior leaders.

About 100 protesters, including CPI(M) leader John Brittas, were packed into two buses and taken away from the area, protesters said.

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Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were detained when their plane landed in Delhi on Saturday, as the movement planned to gather thousands of people at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi.

The court yesterday ordered their release after they gave an undertaking to “maintain public peace for a year”, the CJP said in an official statement. “Cockroaches never die,” the group posted on its X account shortly after Dipke’s release.

Activist and social media influencer Dhruv Rathee, who was also among those detained, was released at midnight on Saturday.

Youth protesters, many of them from students organisations affiliated with India’s communist parties, launched sporadic protests around the city yesterday afternoon before police detained them and hauled them away in vehicles.

The All India Students’ Association alleged in a post on X that those detained were assaulted by police inside the vehicles, reports Reuters.

Over 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel continued to be deployed across the city although metro stations reopened and mobile internet services were back up after the authorities locked down the city in an attempt to thwart Saturday’s protests.

The Congress has asked all its Members of Parliament (MPs) to remain in Delhi today, as the opposition prepares for another round of protests, reports ANN.

With access to Jantar Mantar blocked on the first day Saturday, Neha Bora, emerged as a new face of the protests, urging people to regroup at Dilli Haat, a crafts market 10 km (6 miles) away.

The national president of the left-wing All India Students’ Association was among more than 2,000 activists detained on Saturday. Most of them were released late on Saturday night, police said.

Opposition parties and critics of Modi’s government criticised what they said was the high-handed use of force against the protesters, while a UN body called on authorities to ensure that the right to peaceful assembly was respected and fulfilled.

India’s foreign ministry said the UN’s statement constituted “an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of India.”

At an unusually packed hearing yesterday, the Supreme Court recorded the government’s assurance that lawyers and journalists would not be impeded while performing their duties.

Lawyers protesting outside the top court were detained briefly on Saturday, as were several reporters including a Reuters journalist.

Abhita Ruheja, a protester who was detained yesterday, said the authorities had turned Delhi into a fortress. “Is this how a democracy works? They have been scrapping rights after rights and this is turning into a dictatorship,” she said.