New Delhi, October 17,2026: Abhijeet Dipke, founder of India’s Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), was released from detention on Saturday, a day after being detained during a police crackdown on protests against the country’s election authority.
Dipke, 31, was detained in New Delhi on Friday while heading to join a rally called by the CJP protest movement in the capital’s Connaught Place district. Broadcasters NDTV and India Today reported that he was detained to prevent a breach of the peace.
An AFP photographer saw Dipke leave a police station on Saturday afternoon, waving to the media and giving a thumbs-up as he drove away.
“Abhijeet Dipke released,” CJP legal affairs chief Ratna Singh said on social media.
Opposition parties and CJP activists have defied a security crackdown to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the election authority of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.
More than 130 million voters were removed from the rolls during a revision exercise. The Election Commission has denied favouring any political party and said voters whose names were wrongly deleted can re-enrol. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), meanwhile, has accused its rivals of undermining democracy by questioning legitimate electoral processes.
Student activist Neha Bora, a prominent figure in the protests, was also detained on Friday while attempting to reach central Delhi with dozens of supporters. She was released earlier on Saturday.
“Please, spare the people of India. Impeach Gyanesh Kumar and halt SIR (special intensive revision), so that the ordinary citizens of this country can breathe a sigh of relief, feel at ease, and have their voting rights ensured,” Bora told ANI news agency after her release.
Two other senior CJP leaders, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, were arrested on October 14 after entering Jantar Mantar, a long-established protest site where police have prohibited demonstrations. Both remain in custody.
Members of Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP have long alleged that large numbers of undocumented Muslim migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh have fraudulently entered India’s electoral rolls.
Rights groups and government critics, however, say Modi’s administration has eroded democratic freedoms during more than a decade in power, citing alleged pressure on journalists, civil society organisations and political opponents. The government rejects these allegations.
Earlier this year, a weeks-long sit-in by supporters of the movement forced then-education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign over examination paper leaks.
