NEW DELHI: Indian police detained the head of the satirical “cockroach” online movement as well as thousands of protesters trying to take part in a major demonstration in New Delhi against the country’s election commissioner, the group said on Saturday.
The protest is the culmination of weeks of opposition mobilisation following allegations of misconduct during a nationwide voter-roll revision by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke and two other leaders were detained before disembarking from a flight in the capital, according to a statement from the group.
“They’re being denied access to their lawyers and cut off from all contact with others,” it said, adding the trio had been taken to “an undisclosed location”.
The CJP also said that thousands more protesters were detained in New Delhi as they attempted to march to the main Jantar Mantar protest site, defying a massive security clampdown.
“More than 15,000 protesters have been detained,” Ajinkya Shinde, a CJP leader, said at a news conference in Delhi.
Police did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on detentions.
“We will be back, let them fill up all the jails,” Shinde said.
Dozens of protesters shouted anti-government slogans as they were taken away in police vehicles, AFP reporters witnessed.
Calls for the ECI chief Gyanesh Kumar to step down have intensified in recent weeks as opposition parties and critics said his commission’s voter-roll revision could disenfranchise millions of constituents and benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
The ECI has rejected allegations of impropriety, saying the revision was intended to remove duplicate and ineligible voters.
