New Delhi, Oct 14: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were sent to five-day judicial custody and lodged in Tihar Jail on Wednesday for allegedly breaching their peace bonds and trespassing into Jantar Mantar.
The three were produced before the Executive Magistrate again on Wednesday morning.
They had been detained early Tuesday after allegedly breaching barricades and entering the Jantar Mantar area without authorisation, while raising slogans demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Police registered a case against the CJP activists on charges including trespassing, violating prohibitory orders, breaching a peace bond and obstructing a public servant from discharging official duties, the sources said.
Das and Ranka had signed bonds undertaking to maintain peace for a year after being detained during a protest on Saturday, the sources added.
The action comes amid heightened security in the national capital following protests by the CJP and other organisations against Gyanesh Kumar and alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Reacting to the development, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke accused the Centre of suppressing dissent and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to formally declare an Emergency if the government intended to impose one.
Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, Dipke said, “I want to tell Narendra Modi that if you want to impose emergency in the country, then do it officially.”
“What is this, acting like cowards, imposing an unofficial emergency where you keep people in custody for five days just for waving the national flag at Jantar Mantar? That didn't even happen during the Emergency (imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975),” he said.
Asked about the Opposition INDIA bloc’s protests demanding the CEC’s resignation, Dipke said the CJP is an independent pressure group and would remain so.
“But that does not mean CJP is against the INDIA bloc. The movement of the INDIA bloc and CJP's movement are for the same cause,” he said.
PTI