The Cockroach Janta Party will continue its agitation for an overhaul of the electoral system, its leaders asserted at a news conference on Sunday following their release after about 24 hours in custody.
They denied claims that they had signed a bond promising not to participate in any protests for a year, saying the bond referred only to “refraining from a breach of peace” and that a peaceful protest was a constitutional right.
“We will not go back. We appeal to all citizens of the national capital to hit the streets. Wherever you are, you have to carry out the peaceful protest,” CJP spokesperson Saurav Das said.
“The protests are on.… Protests will happen not just in Delhi but the whole country…. This protest will not stop till (chief election commissioner) Gyanesh (Kumar) resigns.”
Das was accompanied by CJP co-convener Ashutosh Ranka. The outfit’s founder Abhijeet Dipke, detained with Ranka and Das from inside their flight immediately after touchdown at Delhi airport on Saturday morning, had left for Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in Maharashtra following his grandmother’s death on Saturday.
After his flight landed in Nagpur, Dipke told the media that while the police had informed him about her death while he was in detention, he was not given access to his phone even for two minutes to talk to his cousin who lives with her.
Dipke added: “At 3.30am (on Sunday), the Delhi Police came and told me to call my parents and inform them that I had been arrested. What was the intention behind this? Waking me up at 3.30am and telling me to call my parents – waking them up too...?”
He said: “I haven’t signed any bond (not to protest for a year). We will take to the streets again; we will not be intimidated by people like Amit Shah and (Narendra) Modi.”
In the evening, the Delhi Police released a video claiming they had offered to facilitate Dipke’s return home and given him an opportunity to speak to his father.
Dipke is heard purportedly saying: “I will stay.”
Asked for his father’s number, Dipke appears to say he would not be able to speak to him at a time like this.
Dipke reacted by asking on X: “Why did you delete the part where I was asking for my phone so I could retrieve my cousin’s number? And where I was asking to let me speak to my lawyers?”
At the news conference in Delhi, Das said the authorities could have invited a delegation for talks instead of detaining people seeking to demonstrate at a designated site.
He claimed he had heard that even the RSS was pressuring the government to remove Gyanesh.
“So why are you still protecting Gyanesh Kumar? Does he know something about the 2024 Lok Sabha elections?” he asked, adding that Modi had been trailing during the initial counting for the last Lok Sabha polls but later surged ahead.
Ranka said: “The war which was against Gyanesh Kumar is now against Modi and Shah.”
Das alleged that legal procedures were not followed during their detention, and no seizure memos were given when the police seized their phones.
“We reasonably suspect our phones were hacked or, at the least, cloned illegally. The aim is to plant fake evidence to conspire against the movement,” he alleged.
On Sunday morning, Dipke, Das and Ranka were presented before the special executive magistrate’s court at Delhi Cantonment, where advocates Soutik Banerjee and Devika Tulsiani represented them.
The police argued that the trio could “commit” a crime if not detained, the lawyers said.
“The police could give no grounds for further detention, so they were released. A procedural hearing took place where we sought release on personal bonds and without any deposit of surety,” Banerjee said.
At the news conference, Ranka alleged the Delhi Police had “kidnapped” them from their flight.
Kidnapped: Rathee
Earlier in the day, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee — released after being picked up from his parents’ home in Gurgaon on Saturday morning — also used the word “kidnapping” for what had happened to him.
Rathee said he had been denied access to his lawyer.
“For 22 to 23 hours, I was held against my will, denied access to my phone and prevented from speaking to my lawyer,” he said.