Delhi Police Detain Protest Leader Dipke Before Planned Flag Demonstration
Police in the Indian capital detained Abhijeet Dipke, leader of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) youth movement, on Friday as he travelled to a planned evening demonstration in central Delhi.
Dipke was stopped en route to the protest while holding an Indian flag aloft as people began to assemble, according to The Guardian. He had called on supporters to gather and hold up the Indian flag.
Delhi police had sent Dipke a notice instructing him to call off the protest. Officers were deployed in large numbers to the planned site, a park in central Delhi, and the local authority closed the park.
Dipke called the protest after fellow CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were sentenced to five days in jail this week for jumping police barricades and protesting at a restricted demonstration site in Delhi.
Student leader Neha Bora was detained on Friday as she began a march in the centre of Delhi. Police also detained Dipke supporters and student leaders ahead of the planned rally, according to Reuters and CNN.
About 2,000 protesters still gathered around Delhi's Connaught Place and unfurled flags after Dipke's detention.
Supporters of the movement have protested in India's biggest cities to call for the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over an alleged electoral roll revision involving the deletion of 130 million names. The Election Commission and the Bharatiya Janata Party have denied those claims.
Dipke had been detained days earlier, on 10 October, ahead of another planned protest in Delhi. He was later released from detention, according to his lawyer.
