The founder of the youth movement behind Saturday’s planned protest in Delhi was detained by police inside his aircraft moments after landing. Hundreds of others were held across the capital, among them journalists and a prominent YouTuber. Opposition leaders compared the crackdown to the Emergency of 1975.
Leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were detained by police inside an aircraft shortly after landing in Delhi on Saturday, October 10, the Indian news site Scroll reported.
Detained on the Plane
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and fellow leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka arrived on a flight from Mumbai at about 10.20am.
A video posted by the movement showed police detaining them before they had left the aircraft.
The CJP alleged that police had “orchestrated this pre-planned obstruction with the aim of thwarting today’s peaceful protest”. It called the detentions “a blatant violation of the freedom of movement” and demanded the three men’s immediate and unconditional release.
Who Else Was Held
Delhi Police detained hundreds of people across the capital, Scroll reported. They included:
- the YouTuber Dhruv Rathee
- Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association
- Scroll journalists Ayush Tiwari and Shoaib Daniyal, who were covering the protest
- leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), including general secretary MA Baby, former Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Brinda Karat
According to the Hindustan Times, police said protesters near Jantar Mantar were detained because they did not have permission to demonstrate there.
‘Worse Than the Emergency’
Opposition leaders condemned the detentions, with some saying “this is worse than the Emergency”, a reference to the period from 1975 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties.
“We are living under an absolute dictatorship ruled by Modi,” said Arvind Kejriwal, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party. He said the detentions reflected the government’s “unprecedented level of fear”.
MK Stalin, the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, said the scenes “bring back painful memories of the Emergency that I lived through”.
“Dissent is not a crime, and democracy cannot survive by silencing those who rise to defend it,” he said.
Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party, said: “If the government stops the protesters, then Jantar-Mantar will spring up everywhere in the country.”
Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, compared the restrictions to those imposed in Kashmir in 2019. “First crush the protest, then deny it ever happened,” she said.
The Police View
A senior Delhi police officer, Kumar Abhishek, told the ANI news agency that “preventive checks” were in place.
“Extensive arrangements have been made to ensure that public order is not disrupted,” he said, confirming that some people planning to join the protest had been detained.
The Movement Carries On
The CJP has said the protest will go ahead with or without its leadership, The Hindu reported.
“Narendra Modi just made EMERGENCY official,” Dipke wrote on X. “The youth of this country are no longer scared of you.”
Image: Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, the area designated for protests (file photo, 1988). Photo by Jan Kranendonk via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
