India: Court orders release of 'Cockroach' movement leaders

Here are the latest developments from India on Sunday, October 11:

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India's Supreme Court orders no illegal detentions

The Supreme Court passed a slew of directions as it held a special Sunday hearing over restrictions and detentions by Indian authorities to stop demonstrators from reaching Jantar Mantar in New Delhi for Saturday's protest.

The court ordered that there should not be any illegal detentions of people gathering peacefully, "except by procedure established by law, particularly with regard to assemblage of people beyond the area within which it's imposed."

The court was referring to Section 163 of India's criminal procedure law that prohibits any form of assembly or protest and had been enforced in key parts of Delhi ahead of the protest.

Peaceful assemblies must be allowed in accordance with law, especially outside areas where prohibitory orders under Section 163 were in force, the court said.

The Supreme Court ordered that a notice board concerning the imposition of Section 163 in the area around its complex, should be taken down so there is "no apprehension regarding access to justice."

It also ordered the restoration of Delhi metro and railway services, unless regulations were required to be imposed, keeping in mind disturbance to public order.

The top court went on to add that lawyers and journalists should not be impeded from carrying out their professional duties, after Saturday's police action saw several lawyers and journalists being detained along with the protesters.

How has the BJP reacted to the protests against India's election chief?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says that protests over alleged voter list manipulation are an attempt to "create a highly dangerous and serious situation in the country."

The party has denounced the CJP and the INDIA bloc of opposition parties as "anarchists".

"Right now, there's a race in the country to prove who is how big an anarchist," BJP National President Nitin Nabin said on Saturday, adding this included Rahul Gandhi's 'INDI alliance' and the leaders of the "Cockroach" movement

These sentiments were also echoed by BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj at press briefing on Sunday.

"It seems a competition in creating anarchy is emerging between Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi. Whether it is the Aam Aadmi Party or the Congress, the country's revered voters have rejected both. Having failed to secure power through the people's mandate, they are now looking for excuses for their defeat," Swaraj told reporters.

CJP Founder Abhijeet Dipke railed against Modi in a post on X, shortly after the activist leader was released from detention on Sunday.

"Modi, as PM, is an embarrassment to India," Dipke said, while calling the Indian leader as a "coward" and "bully."

Modi was in Tamil Nadu's capital Chennai on Sunday for a series of engagements, including laying foundation stones for development projects estimated to be worth over 130 billion Indian rupees. He has yet to directly address the latest CJP protests this weekend.

CJP issues fresh appeal for peaceful protests

CJP co-convenor Saurav Das called on people from across India to again protest in a peaceful manner.

"This demonstration is still on," Das said as he spoke about reported protester detentions taking place for a second day.

"We are not going to move back, we appeal to all Indian citizens that you will have to fight. You will have to come out on the streets. Wherever you are, you will have to do a peaceful demonstration," he told a press conference.

"This system cannot go on like this. This system is broken. This system is corrupt… and this system only works in the service of two people," Das said, going on to name Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

The CJP's Ashutosh Ranka said peaceful protesters who wanted to demonstrate at a designated protest site were picked up.

"The fight has just begun…Modi and Shah should feel ashamed for treating this fight like a war," he said.

Indian authorities try to shut down a 'Cockroach' protest

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CJP leaders hold press conference after release from preventive detention

"Cockroach" protest movement leader Saurav Das told reporters at a press conference in New Delhi that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is putting India in a "civil war-like situation,"

Das spoke to reporters hours after he was released from detention along with co-leaders Abhijeet Dipke and Ashutosh Ranka.

Ranka and CJP legal head Ratna Singh were also present at the press conference.

Das accused the police of "arriving like mafia dons" and "abducting" them on Saturday when they were detained from a plane upon landing in New Delhi.

He alleged they were not allowed to meet their lawyers while in detention.

New protest arrests reported in Delhi

More detentions are being reported in New Delhi as India's election protest appears to be entering a second day.

Several protesters were seen marching towards the protest site in Jantar Mantar in images circulating on Indian media.

News agency ANI reported that some people were detained at the inner circle of Connaught Place, close to Jantar Mantar, where student and youth organizations of opposition parties were protesting.

Meanwhile, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which is organizing protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, shared a series of videos on X, alleging fresh detentions.

"Detain us, arrest us, do whatever you can! We will not be intimidated. This is just the beginning. We will continue fighting until all our demands are met," the CJP’s Ajinkya Shinde said on X.

India slams UN human rights body's statement on detentions

India on Sunday rejected remarks by the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that called on Indian authorities to immediately release "arbitrarily detained" people during Saturday's protest.

"We are concerned by reports of mass detentions in India of demonstrators, protest leaders, members of civil society organisations, lawyers and journalists, before and during today's large-scale demonstrations in Delhi," the OHCHR said in a statement on Saturday.

"All those arbitrarily detained must be immediately and unconditionally released."

India's Foreign Ministry called the UN office's concerns "unwarranted" and said that they "constitute an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs" of the country.

"India is the world's largest democracy, where the right to peaceful assembly is guaranteed by our Constitution and safeguarded by robust institutions, an independent judiciary and a free media," the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

"As in every democracy, Indian citizens exercise this right subject to the maintenance of public order and safety. Our law enforcement authorities act strictly in accordance with the law, and our courts remain available to all for the redressal of any grievances."

The ministry went on to accuse the UN human rights agency of having an "approach of extreme selectivity" on public positions.

The ministry said it had noted that "violent responses to protests" in India's neighborhood have gone "uncommented, as indeed have law enforcement actions in its own vicinity."

The statement accused the OHCHR of "double standards" which it continued to say "only erode the credibility" of the body and "contribute to the loss of faith in multilateralism."

What is the latest on the protests?

The CJP is set to hold a press conference in New Delhi at 2 p.m. local time (8.30 am UTC) today, the group said Sunday.

Meanwhile, it is yet to be seen if a fresh protest in New Delhi will take place. On Saturday evening, temporary protest leader Ajinkya Shinde had called for new demonstrations.

Earlier on X, Shinde said that a protest was scheduled in Mumbai at 4 p.m. adding that more cities "will follow."

As of early afternoon in Delhi, there were no signs of any major gathering of protesters around the Jantar Mantar site in the center of the city.

On Saturday, Mumbai too saw a series of detentions at a protest against the chief election commissioner over alleged electoral roll irregularities.

According to reports, around 600 protesters were detained and later released. The detainees included Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of India's independence icon Mahatma Gandhi, and Bollywood actor Imran Khan.

Why do protesters want election chief Gyanesh Kumar to resign?

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) started as an online satirical movement and sprung to the mainstream as a pressure group in July after forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's then education minister amid massive youth-led demonstrations.

Now the CJP movement has Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in its crosshairs.

Here is a ten-point breakdown of the controversy surrounding the top election official:

The CJP is not the only group calling for Kumar's resignation.

India's bloc of opposition parties, led by Congress' Rahul Gandhi, has been carrying out a sustained campaign against Kumar in recent days, including organizing its own protest marches.

'Cockroach ' leaders released on condition of 'no breach of peace' for a year — reports

Cockroach Janta Party leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were released from detention on condition that they made "no breach of peace for one year," according to reports citing the movement's legal head, Ratna Singh, on Sunday.

In a post on X cited by the AFP news agency, Singh said the three had been released on the condition that they make "no breach of peace for one year."

News agency ANI reported the Delhi Police as saying the movement's leaders were placed under "preventive arrest" on Saturday, and that a bail bond of 50,000 rupees (€ 460) was filled for "maintaining peace and good behavior for a period of one year."

YouTuber Dhurv Rathee released from detention

Social media influencer Dhruv Rathee, who was detained from his Gurugram residence on Saturday morning ahead protests in Delhi, was released overnight, reports said.

Reuters news agency cited an anonymous Interior Ministry official as saying that Rathee was released on condition that he would not take part in any further protests.

On Friday night, Rathee had uploaded a video of himself standing in front of New Delhi's iconic India Gate, where he called out the elaborate restrictions authorities had put in place to counter the protests planned by the Cockroach movement.

Supreme Court holds special Sunday hearing on protest curbs, detentions

A rare Sunday hearing is set to take place in India's top court over a contempt petition against a set of transportation restrictions during a large-scale protest in New Delhi a day earlier.

The petition accuses authorities of closing metro stations despite a Supreme Court order against a complete shutdown of public transport ahead of the protest.

On Friday, authorities had ordered the closure of more than 50 metro stations and canceled many trains bound for two major railway stations in the capital in a bid to keep protesters from heading to central Delhi.

But the Supreme Court later directed the government to not completely stop train services and said that there should be no blanket closure of metro stations.

The court was also scheduled to hear petitions challenging the detentions of thousands of protesters, Cockroach Janta Party leaders and political leaders from India's opposition parties.

'Cockroach' leaders ordered released from detention, party says

An executive court in Delhi has ordered the release of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke and other leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, the youth-led movement said on Sunday.

The three were detained ahead of a large protest in Dehli on Saturday and appeared in court earlier on Sunday after being in detention for nearly 24 hours.

Earlier, the CJP had alleged the leaders were being detained at an undisclosed location and did not have access to their lawyers.

On Saturday evening, the CJP issued a fresh call for a march to New Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Sunday.

"We're not backing down! We will march to Jantar Mantar again tomorrow," Ajinkya Shinde, the CJP's interim protest leader, said at a press conference.

The exact number of demonstrators detained during the protest could not be immediately verified.

Shinde told reporters that over 15,000 people, including students, had been detained across India.

The Hindu newspaper, citing Delhi Police sources, reported that 2,500 demonstrators were detained in Delhi on top of 1,000 people picked up in overnight preventive measures ahead of the protest.

Indian media reports cite Delhi Police as saying that all detainees had been released later on Saturday.

This is Dharvi Vaid Dhulia from DW's Studio in New Delhi, bringing you the Sunday edition of the India news blog.

We are continuing our coverage of the intensifying election protests in India over alleged manipulation of voter lists.

Here's a quick recap of what went down on Saturday:

Dramatic scenes unfolded in the streets of the capital of the world's largest democracy on Saturday as authorities tried to thwart a protest called by the "Cockroach" movement calling for the resignation of India's election chief.

Thousands of youth protesters were detained and hauled away in buses as parts of Delhi were locked down with a mammoth deployment of police and paramilitary personnel, who essentially outnumbered the demonstrators.

Mobile internet services were suspended in central Delhi in a rare move for the key power district, while dozens of metro stations were closed.

Police cited violation of a ban on the protest as basis for the mass detentions. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and student organizations supporting the demonstration maintain that they did not need permission, citing protesting as a fundamental right.

The three main faces of the CJP — Founder Abhijeet Dipke, Co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka — were detained onboard a plane as soon as they landed in New Delhi for the protest.

Meanwhile, four former chief ministers of Indian states were also briefly detained during the protest, amid the opposition parties stepping up their calls for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Stay tuned as we bring you more.

'Cockroach' movement leaders arrested ahead of protests