The recently decommissioned protest site of Jantar Mantar brought the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) and the broader Opposition on the same page on Wednesday after three CJP members were jailed, triggering condemnation and a vow to restore the 18th-century observatory’s status as the Capital’s agitation hub.
Special executive magistrate Mahesh Kumar Meena remanded CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka to five days’ judicial custody for allegedly trespassing into a private property to reach Jantar Mantar and violating bonds requiring them to maintain peace.
“The past conduct of both accused persons shows that they violated the lawful directions of the authorities. The present conduct of both accused persons shows that they are likely to breach peace and tranquillity in the area,” said the magistrate’s order.
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Leaders booked under multiple BNS sections
The controversial decision came a day after Das, Ranka and Ajinkya Shinde breached barricades, snuck into Jantar Mantar – no longer a designated protest site, after an order earlier this week – and raised the Tricolour, while shouting slogans against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Das and Ranka are among 11 people booked by the Delhi Police for entering Jantar Mantar by trespassing through a private premise.
An FIR in connection with the incident has been lodged at Connaught Police Station under sections 223A (knowing disobedience of a lawful order issued by a public servant), 332 (house-trespass in order to commit an offence) and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, while another FIR under BNS sections 221 (voluntarily obstructing public servant in the discharge of their public functions), 115(2) (voluntarily causing simple hurt to another person), 132 (assault or criminal force used to deter a public servant from discharging their duty), and other sections, was lodged at Parliament Street Police Station.
The order does not mention Shinde.
“From the material on record, it is imperative that the above-said respondents, after having executed a bond/bail bond for keeping the peace in pursuance of an order of SEM South West under Section 136 BNSS, have again committed breach of the bond/bail bond, which is evident from their conduct/social media posts and statement of complainant,” the order read.
Shinde released on personal bond
Shinde was released on a personal bond and a surety of ₹5,000. The other two –– who were previously detained from a flight on October 11 and released after signing a bond –– were sent to Tihar jail.
According to two senior Delhi Police officers, the SEM who issued the order at Mandir Marg police station is an assistant commissioner of police-rank officer.
Separately, a petition against the special intensive revision and Kumar’s conduct filed by 10 Opposition leaders is set to be heard by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The arrests triggered condemnation, fresh calls for protest and questions from the Opposition about which private property was breached and whether a public site such as Jantar Mantar could be “trespassed” into.
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“Waving the Tricolour at Jantar Mantar in a peaceful protest is not a crime. Jailing youth for it is an act of cowardice. Students. Youth. Journalists. The INDIA bloc. Different banners, one cause. All protests are one: citizens demanding their constitutional rights. Jantar Mantar belongs to the people of India. We will reclaim it,” Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on X.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke replied to the post “Thank you, LoP Rahul Gandhi sir, for speaking out against the illegal arrest of Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das”.
Dipke – who landed in Delhi from Nagpur on Wednesday – said the CJP and the INDIA bloc were fighting the same battle. “All protests are fighting for the same cause... Gyanesh Kumar is rigging elections and helping Narendra Modi stay in power. We are all fighting against that,” Dipke said.
“I urge all patriots who love the tricolour to come to Central Park, Connaught Place at 5pm on October 16 with the national flag. We will show that waving a tiranga is not a crime,” he said on X.
In a post on X, BJP national media convenor Ashish Usha Agarwal said public spaces cannot be turned into political battlegrounds to capture power. “Rahul Gandhi, stop misleading the nation,” Agarwal said.
Jantar Mantar remained tense throughout the day. Hundreds of Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers marched towards the site, climbing atop detention buses parked along the road as police stopped the march near Parliament Street Police Station and detained several protesters. Activists of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) also attempted to march towards Jantar Mantar from Ferozeshah Road but were stopped at police barricades.
Congress challenges Jantar Mantar denotification in Delhi HC
IYC chief Uday Bhanu Chib also filed a petition in the Delhi high court, challenging the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site.
For 33 years, Jantar Mantar hosted causes big and small – former soldiers demanding parity in pensions, a woman on hunger strike spotlighting army excesses, sexual violence victims hoping for justice, queer people dreaming of dignity, and a generation imagining a future free of corruption. But against the backdrop of the sprawling NEET agitation this summer that forced the education minister’s resignation and the ongoing stir against Kumar, police denotified Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site.
The order – signed by police commissioner Anurag Kumar and dated October 11 – also designated three new protest venues: Ramlila Ground, Burari Ground in north Delhi and CBD Ground in east Delhi. The decision came after the Supreme Court urged authorities to identify a spacious and open alternative protest site equipped with basic amenities instead of Jantar Mantar.
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14 CJP workers detained after entering former protest site
Then, on Tuesday morning, 14 CJP workers scaled an iron gate of an office premises to enter the site that was cordoned off by police barricades. Police detained all of them, and arrested Das, Ranka and Shinde.
“Their alleged attempts to use social media to instigate others to participate in similar unlawful activities were also taken into account”, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Sachin Sharma said.
The three were produced before a special executive magistrate (SEM), where proceedings were initiated under sections 126 (security for keeping peace in other cases) and 170 (arrest to prevent commission of cognizable offences) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
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Pinarayi Vijayan condemns detention of CJP leaders
“In a democracy, the right to protest should never be confined to a designated site. Under Modi’s government, even that limited space is being taken away. The irony is staggering: a government that wraps itself in the Tricolour is detaining young leaders like @SauravDassss, @AshutoshRanka and @AjinkyaCJP for waving it in protest,” said former Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The ongoing protests are part of a longer string of events that have mounted pressure on Kumar over the controversial special intensive revision – which has already deleted 130 million names from India’s electoral rolls – and other allegations. The developments follow an Indian Express investigation that said election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded written dissents and objections at least 14 times between November 2025 and August 2026 and even wrote to the cabinet secretary. It also alleged that election officials found their access to the ECI software curtailed by the central IT team. ECI said all its digital platforms operated under strict data security protocols.
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Over the past week, tens of thousands of people have hit the streets, braving expansive metro closures, internet shutdown, prohibitory orders and 40,000 security personnel who turned the Capital into a virtual fortress and sparked controversy by dragging, manhandling and detaining many agitators.
While the Opposition is seeking the removal of Kumar and the scrapping of SIR, the BJP blames them for trying to destabilise constitutional bodies to deflect attention from their own electoral failures.