Arrests before a banned march
Indian police detained Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), on 16 October 2026, shortly before a protest in New Delhi that the authorities had banned. Officers first went to his home and told him the march could not go ahead at Connaught Place, one of the capital's busiest commercial centres. Footage of the arrest was broadcast live by NDTV, showing Dipke being taken into a police vehicle after supporters tried to stop it from leaving. Neha Bora, president of the student group AISA, was detained the same day, and supporters said on social media that she had been pushed into a van and was at an unknown location for hours. She was released on the morning of 17 October, after supporters said she had been held for five hours at the R.K. Puram police station.
- Police detain Abhijeet Dipke and Neha Bora ahead of a banned march in New Delhi
- Neha Bora released from police custody on the morning of 17 October
- Abhijeet Dipke due to appear before a special court
Charges and court appearances
Dipke is accused of attempting to take part in an unauthorised demonstration, and proceedings have started against him under sections 126 and 170 of the BNSS. He is due to appear before a special court on 17 October. In a post on X, Rathna Singh, who leads the party's legal wing, said his whereabouts were still unknown and that lawyers had not been allowed to meet him. Two of his deputies, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, remain in custody after being detained for waving an Indian tricolour at Jantar Mantar, a protest site the government has decommissioned to keep demonstrators away from the centre and Parliament. Janta Mantar can no longer be used for protests, and the authorities have designated three other sites kilometres from Parliament, the nearest of which is available only on 29, 30 and 31 December.
The voter-roll dispute
Protesters demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, 62, who was appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The opposition accuses Kumar of removing millions of names from the electoral rolls to benefit Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, a claim that the commission and the party deny. Il Sole 24 Ore reports that more than 130 million names have been removed from the lists to date, about 13 percent of the electorate. According to the New York Times, nine million names disappeared in West Bengal, a state the BJP won in May. Two of the three election commissioners objected to the criteria used to review the rolls, and Kumar rejected those objections. In July, the movement forced the education minister to resign.
Protests continue on the ground
Despite the arrests, El Mundo reported that thousands of people gathered in central Delhi, while Volkskrant put the crowd at about 2,000. Bloomberg reported thousands of security personnel deployed across the city. El Mundo said the protests spread, with less intensity, to other large cities such as Mumbai. Multiple reports describe police violence against demonstrators, and thousands were detained during an earlier attempt to protest in New Delhi, among them opposition politicians and journalists. A 31-year-old law lecturer, Payal Mangla, told Il Sole 24 Ore that she had answered the call to protest the arrest of the movement's deputies, because she wanted to protect democracy and prevent India from becoming an authoritarian state.