Abhijeet Dipke, Cockroach Janta Party convener, detained by Delhi Police before planned tricolour gathering at Connaught Place

Abhijeet Dipke, founder and convener of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), was detained on Friday, 16 October, by Delhi Police while setting out from his home for the “Lehra Do Tiranga” gathering the party had planned at Connaught Place’s Central Park, police sources told PTI and IANS. The event had been scheduled for 5 pm.

Deccan Herald reported that the gathering was the newest in a run of protests led by CJP demanding that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar step down. According to IANS, the party says it has staged comparable events in Bengaluru, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune.

Prohibitory notices before the march

A few hours before Dipke was detained, upwards of 20 police personnel arrived at his home and handed him a notice prohibiting the protest, PTI reported in a story published by National Herald. IANS said there were two notices. New Delhi district authorities issued the first under the Delhi Police Act, invoking Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The second, from South West Delhi authorities, pointed to a court direction requiring Dipke and his co-conveners, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, to refrain from causing public disturbance for a year. IANS said the three had been “bound down” following a preventive detention at the airport.

PTI reviewed a copy of the notice from the Connaught Place SHO. It stated that no permission had been requested and that Connaught Place has not been designated as a protest site. Among its grounds were:

• the concentric design of the area, whose few entry and exit points could make it hard to disperse or evacuate a crowd;
• the income of what it described as “over 15 lakh traders and their employees”;
• the risk of a stampede at Rajiv Chowk Metro station, used by around two lakh commuters every day;
• the nearness of diplomatic zones, the Central Secretariat and Parliament.

Pointing to CJP’s previous protests, the notice alleged that “unauthorised calls for a march to the Parliament” had resulted in violence and property damage. According to PTI, police were willing to let a small group with the national flag assemble at another venue. The report added that the New Delhi Municipal Council kept Central Park off-limits to visitors on Friday and Saturday “for administrative reasons.”

Heavy deployment in the capital

According to the PTI report, 220 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces had been posted in New Delhi, along with upwards of 6,000 police personnel. Any breach of the prohibitory orders would invite legal action, police said, according to IANS.

What Dipke said

“Businesses do not suffer because of peaceful protests,” Dipke posted on X ahead of being detained, IANS reported. In the post, he contended that seeking accountability and asking questions of public representatives should not be branded anarchy, and said the party stood by the Gandhian principles of non-violence, according to IANS. No post-detention response from Dipke or CJP appeared in either report.

Earlier: Dipke, Das and Ranka of CJP freed 22 hours after being detained at the airport.

Sources: National Herald (PTI), Punjab Kesari English (IANS), Deccan Herald