Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) activist Abhijeet Dipke on October 11 vowed that the party would continue its campaign following his release from preventive detention after protests in Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
“The CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated,” Dipke said in a post on X, describing the October 10 demonstration at Jantar Mantar as “the beginning of the end of this dictatorship”.
Dipke also announced that he was returning to his village in Maharashtra following the death of his grandmother. She passed away in Santuk Pimpri village in Hingoli district after a prolonged illness and age-related ailments.
He added that fellow CJP members Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka would address a press conference in Delhi shortly.
The three activists were released after being produced before an Executive Magistrate at Delhi Cantonment Police Station, according to CJP legal affairs head Ratna Singh.
Singh said their release was conditional on maintaining public order for one year. “Condition – no breach of peace for one year,” she wrote on X.
The activists were detained on Saturday as Delhi Police tightened security across the national capital ahead of the CJP-led demonstration seeking Kumar’s resignation.
Following his detention, Dipke criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a post on X, writing: “Modi, as PM, is an embarrassment to India. Never has this country seen a bigger coward and bully.”
Ranka also targeted the chief election commissioner, declaring, “Gyanesh Kumar is a traitor. He will have to resign. I am even willing to spend my entire life in jail to get such traitors removed.”
The controversy widened on Sunday after YouTuber Dhruv Rathee alleged that around 20 men in civilian clothes forcibly took him from his home on Saturday while he was asleep. Describing the incident as a “kidnapping”, Rathee claimed he was dragged from his bedroom, injured and denied access to a lawyer and a phone.
Rathee further alleged that he was held for around 20 to 22 hours and repeatedly told that he had neither been arrested nor detained. These allegations could not be independently verified from the information available.
The CJP had earlier claimed that Rathee was detained, alleging that the government was targeting young people who questioned its actions. “The Dictator is TERRIFIED of young people who question its wrongdoings and refuse to stay silent,” the group said on X.
Around 1,000 people, including Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, were reportedly detained in Delhi on Saturday amid a heavy police deployment and restrictions around protest sites.
Barricades were erected at the Ghazipur border, while entry and exit gates at 45 Metro stations were closed during the security operation.
The detentions triggered allegations of a crackdown on democratic rights and intensified the political confrontation between protesters and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Despite the preventive arrests and security restrictions, Dipke’s statement indicated that the CJP intended to continue its campaign demanding Kumar’s resignation.