Delhi police detain Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke ahead of flag march

Delhi Police detained Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, on October 16 shortly before a planned march at Central Park in Connaught Place. Senior officer Sachin Sharma described the action as preventive detention. Student activist Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association, was also detained while trying to reach the site.

Dipke was stopped as he left a house in central Delhi and placed in a police vehicle after a brief exchange. The Cockroach Janta Party posted that he had been detained and stated that contact was lost. Police had earlier served him a notice under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita warning that the area was under restrictions and that the march lacked permission from the New Delhi Municipal Council. Officers met him earlier in the day and advised against proceeding.

The march was called in support of two other Cockroach Janta Party leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who had been sent to jail for five days earlier in the week after demonstrating at Jantar Mantar in violation of a ban. Hundreds of supporters gathered in the Connaught Place area waving the national flag and calling for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The groups allege that a revision of electoral rolls has removed large numbers of names in a manner that favors the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Election Commission has said deletions include deceased voters, those who relocated and those who could not be traced, and that wrongly removed voters can re-enrol.

This was Dipke’s second detention in less than a week. On the previous Saturday police boarded his flight after it landed in Delhi and took him into custody before he could reach another demonstration; he was released the next day. The three principal leaders of the group are again in custody. Reports indicate Dipke was due to appear before a special executive magistrate under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita.

The protests have continued near-daily this month. The central factual dispute remains the scale and composition of the voter-roll deletions and whether the process met statutory standards. Police action focused on the planned gathering at a busy commercial district under existing prohibitory orders.