Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were sent to five days’ judicial custody and lodged in Tihar Jail on Wednesday for allegedly violating their peace bonds and trespassing into Jantar Mantar, which has been denotified as a protest area, police said.
Their associate Ajinkya Shinde was bound down to maintain peace and good behaviour for six months and released on a personal bond and a surety of ₹5,000, the police added.
The three were produced before a special executive magistrate on Wednesday morning.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, who reached New Delhi on Wednesday afternoon, called on “patriots” to gather at 5pm on Friday at Central Park in Delhi’s Connaught Place business hub with the national flag, saying Das and Ranka had been “jailed only for unfurling the Tricolour”.
The CJP leaders were detained early on Tuesday after they breached barricades and entered the Jantar Mantar area without authorisation, raised slogans demanding chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation and hoisted a national flag there.
They were booked on charges including trespassing, violating prohibitory orders, breach of peace bond and obstructing a public servant from discharging official duties, sources said.
Das and Ranka had signed bonds to maintain peace for a year after they were detained on Saturday, they added.
“We will show that waving a Tiranga is not a crime,” Dipke posted on X and asked those who cannot come to Delhi to carry out “Tiranga marches” in their cities. He expressed apprehension that he might also be jailed.
Speaking to reporters earlier in the day in Nagpur, Dipke alleged that the Narendra Modi government was imposing an “unofficial emergency”. He sought to know what offence Das and Ranka had committed by waving the Tricolour at Jantar Mantar.
“What was their crime?” he asked. “I want to tell Narendra Modi that if you want to impose an emergency in the country, then do it officially if you have the guts.”
“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 happen even during the Emergency (imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975),” Dipke added.
He visited Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur, where Dr B.R. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with thousands of his followers on October 14, 1956, and paid tributes to the chief architect of India’s Constitution on the occasion of “Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Din”.
“Our country runs on the Constitution and the ideas of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. No matter what efforts Narendra Modi or anyone else makes to impose the RSS ideology on this country, that will not happen,” the CJP leader said.
On the protests by the Opposition INDIA bloc to seek the CEC’s resignation, Dipke said the CJP was an independent pressure group and would always remain so. “But that does not mean the CJP is against the INDIA bloc. The movement of the INDIA bloc and the CJP’s movement are for the same cause,” he said.
Asked whether the Opposition march to the Supreme Court on Monday should have been avoided since it is a constitutional institution, Dipke alleged that despite its status, the apex court had “in some ways helped the Election Commission” in matters such as party splits and the freezing of election symbols.
He also questioned the court’s role during the deletion of voters’ names from electoral rolls.
Dipke said the Supreme Court’s stance on the deletion of voters in Bengal was that it was “not a big deal” and that those who could not vote in the current election could do so in the next one.
“Will the Supreme Court tell Narendra Modi the same thing, don’t contest this election, contest next time? If you cannot tell Narendra Modi that, then why do you tell voters that it’s okay not to vote this time, vote next time,” Dipke said.
In a statement, the Delhi Police said that on Tuesday morning, Das, Ranka, Shinde and 11 other CJP members entered Jantar Mantar, which has been denotified as a designated protest site, by trespassing through a private premise.
“Police personnel deployed at the spot intervened and attempted to stop them. However, the protesters allegedly obstructed police personnel in the discharge of their official duties. All 14 persons were detained, and an FIR at Connaught Place Police Station under Sections 223A, 332 and 61(2) on October 13 and another FIR under Sections 221, 115(2), 132, 121(1) and 3(5) at the Parliament Street Police Station were registered against them,” the police statement said.
In view of their alleged attempts to disturb public peace and violate the law, Das, Ranka and Shinde were placed under preventive arrest, the police said.
“Their alleged attempts to instigate others through social media to engage in similar unlawful activities were also taken into consideration. The three individuals were produced before the Special Executive Magistrate, where proceedings under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita were initiated,” the statement said.
While sending Das and Ranka to judicial custody, the court considered the police report, the “repeated violation of law” by the activists, and “serious apprehension” that if released on bail they would again do so and instigate others, the police said.