Top leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), including Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka and Ajinkya Shinde, were detained by Delhi Police near Jantar Mantar on Sunday, a day after the iconic site was denotified as a designated protest venue.
“Cockroaches with the Tiranga sneaked into Jantar Mantar early this morning before they were picked up by Delhi Police,” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said in a post on X.
Dipke said Ranka, Das, Shinde and other team members had been detained. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” he added.
A video shared by Dipke on social media shows CJP members jumping over a gate to enter Jantar Mantar and raising slogans, including “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. Police personnel can be seen rushing towards them and detaining the protesters.
The Delhi Police on Saturday denotified Jantar Mantar as a designated venue for demonstrations, naming Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground in east Delhi as alternative sites for protests.
According to an official order issued by Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar on October 11, the Union Home Ministry had constituted a committee to examine alternative venues where citizens could exercise their right to organise protests and demonstrations. Based on the committee’s recommendations, Jantar Mantar was denotified as a protest venue.
The decision comes amid protests in the national capital over alleged irregularities in the electoral roll revision exercise. The CJP and Opposition parties have been holding separate demonstrations demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
On October 10, police stopped a planned CJP protest at Jantar Mantar, detaining thousands of protesters and barricading several routes leading to the venue.
In July, Jantar Mantar witnessed large-scale demonstrations organised by the CJP over the NEET-UG paper leak controversy. The protests were followed by the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
