Police detain Cockroach party founder Dipke at Delhi airport before protest

Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke at Delhi airport on 10 October 2026 after he flew in from Mumbai to lead a mass protest, with leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka also held from their flight. About 200 protesters were detained in central Delhi, a police source said, as thousands of officers and paramilitaries sealed the capital against the demonstration.aljazeera.com+1

What the detentions changed

Video released by the CJP showed police boarding Dipke's plane soon after it landed. "This is dictatorship, with Delhi police entering the plane and trying to arrest us," Dipke said. The party condemned the detentions, saying "This pre-planned interception by the Delhi Police aims to cripple the leadership of today's peaceful demonstrations before they even reach the protest site."

Security forces sealed central Delhi with multiple layers of yellow metal barricades blocking roads to Jantar Mantar, the designated protest ground. Mobile internet was suspended within a 4km radius of the protest area from Friday night to Saturday night, ANI reported citing a government order. Dozens of metro stations closed and several trains to New Delhi were cancelled, though the Supreme Court said on Friday some trains must still run.

The protest targets Gyanesh Kumar, the 62-year-old chief of the Election Commission, over a revision of voter lists that removed about 130 million names. The demonstrations began after the Indian Express newspaper reported Kumar's deputies had questioned and disagreed with him over the revision process. Critics say the purge strips out eligible voters to benefit Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, claims the BJP and the commission deny.

Why the protest targets Kumar

The CJP takes its name from an off-the-cuff remark by India's chief justice, who in May allegedly used the words "cockroaches" and "parasites" to refer to groups of unemployed youth. He later claimed he was misquoted, but Dipke, a Boston University graduate, ran with it, hailing the insect's stubbornness. The movement then joined nationwide protests demanding the education minister's removal over exam paper leaks.

Crowds in Delhi had not reached the scale of previous protests by about midday on Saturday, as organisers had hoped tens of thousands would attend. The CJP said police in several states were detaining thousands of its supporters, claiming at least 10,000 people had been detained nationwide. Police have not responded to the party's broader allegations of mass detentions.

Nitin Nabin, president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, accused the CJP of attempting to destabilise India. "You are attempting to destabilize it at the behest of foreign forces," he said on X. The CJP said highly popular influencer Dhruv Rathee, who has 33 million subscribers on YouTube alone, was detained at the protest site, while a police spokesperson said Rathee was held outside Delhi.

What happens next

Delhi police said on Friday they had not given permission for the protest because the request did not come on time, adding that CJP had violated undertakings given during previous protests. CJP leaders rejected the decision and said they would go ahead. Dipke posted on X before his detention: "The dictator would rather shut down the entire national capital and inconvenience millions of citizens than allow a peaceful protest."

Near daily protests by opposition groups pose a new political challenge to Modi, just months after similar demonstrations forced his education minister to quit over exam paper leaks. The unrest arrives months before a series of important state elections starting in early 2027, including in the BJP-ruled most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, raising the stakes for both the movement and the government.