India's 'cockroach' movement leaders detained for five days
Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das of the Cockroach Janta Party. (Reuters: Priyanshu Sing)
In short:
Two leaders of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party have been detained in jail for five days.
They were detained after they scaled barricades to enter a historic site popular for protests and chanted slogans demanding the election chief's resignation.
What's next?
The detentions risk triggering fresh protests by youth supporters at a time when opposition groups and student bodies are holding almost daily demonstrations.
Two leaders of India's "cockroach" youth movement will serve five days in jail after being detained during a protest.
Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were among a dozen people detained by police on Tuesday after they climbed over barricades to enter a historic site popular for protests in New Delhi.
Police said this week that the site, Jantar Mantar, was no longer an official protest venue and accused Das and Ranka of trespassing.
The arrests follow a sweeping police crackdown over the weekend aimed at preventing mostly young Indians from gathering to demand the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The Cockroach Janta Party is demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner. (AP: Manish Swarup)
Police briefly detained thousands of demonstrators.
"Jantar Mantar belongs to the people of India. We will reclaim it," opposition leader Rahul Gandhi wrote on X.
Protests intensify
Protests have intensified over an ongoing nationwide revision of voter lists that has removed more than 130 million names since last year.
Critics say the exercise is politically motivated and could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.
The Election Commission and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration say the revision is intended to remove duplicate and ineligible entries.
Abhijeet Dipke, the "cockroach" movement's founder, criticised Modi in a post on X.
"If you're so determined to crush dissent, have the courage to officially declare an Emergency instead of hiding behind these cowardly tactics," he wrote.
The "cockroach" movement began as an online satirical campaign this summer after India's chief justice compared unemployed young people to parasites.
Many young Indians embraced the remark, adopting the cockroach as a symbol of resilience.
Protests led by the group forced the resignation of Modi's education minister in July, a rare setback for the prime minister, who has been in power for more than 12 years.
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