India's Cockroach Janta Party chief detained ahead of Delhi election protest

Indian police detained Abhijeet Dipke, who leads the satirical online movement known as the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), along with two other party figures on Saturday, the group said in a social media post. The three were taken into custody as they got off a flight in New Delhi, where the CJP had called a major demonstration against the Election Commission of India. The protest was scheduled to take place in the heart of the capital.

The demonstration is the product of weeks of opposition organising around a nationwide revision of voter rolls. Opposition parties and critics argue the exercise could strip voting rights from millions of people and work to the advantage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The Election Commission has dismissed allegations of wrongdoing in what it calls a special intensive revision, saying the aim is to clear duplicate and ineligible entries from the rolls.

Delhi has been under a tight security clampdown since Friday, with tens of thousands of police and paramilitary personnel deployed to keep people away from the main protest site in central Delhi. Dozens of metro stations were shut, several trains bound for the capital were cancelled, and mobile internet was temporarily suspended around the demonstration area. Television footage on Saturday showed officers chasing protesters and pulling them into vehicles in parts of central Delhi, and local media reports put the number of people detained at more than 200.

Opposition Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal condemned the detentions. In a statement, he said India was living under what he described as an absolute dictatorship run by Modi, adding that arresting protesters directly off a flight showed an unprecedented level of fear.

The CJP is demanding the resignation of Election Commission chief Gyanesh Kumar. The mobilisation is widely viewed as a repeat of the movement's large-scale action in July, which ended with the education minister stepping down over an examination scandal.

The crackdown continued as protesters tried to converge on the capital despite the transport and communications restrictions, with the party's leadership now in custody ahead of its planned rally.