New Delhi: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das have been placed under preventive arrest and will be brought before the Executive Magistrate at Delhi Cantt Police Station on Sunday, a senior police officer said.
The three were detained by Delhi Police soon after their flight from Mumbai landed in the national Capital on Saturday, ahead of the party’s planned protest at Jantar Mantar, police said.
Heavy Policing In Capital
Elaborate arrangements had been made by police to prevent protesters from reaching Jantar Mantar on Saturday.
CJP legal affairs head Ratna Singh said in a post on X that a Delhi Police official had informed her about the leaders being produced before the magistrate.
“Important update – Abhijeet, Ashutosh and Saurav will be produced before the Executive Magistrate at Delhi Cantt Police Station at 9 AM today. A Delhi police official informed me about this in the morning,” she wrote.
Singh said she would be present at the police station along with other advocates representing the three leaders, as reported by The New Indian Express.
Notably, Dipke, Das and Ranka were detained by police inside an aircraft shortly after their flight from Mumbai landed in Delhi.
In a video shared by the CJP, Dipke could be heard telling police officers who entered the aircraft, “We are here to be arrested, come and arrest us.”
Before the detention, police personnel told the CJP leaders that they did not have permission to hold their protest at Jantar Mantar.
‘Not Afraid Of You’: Dipke
Dipke alleged that CJP leaders were being detained as if they were criminals. He said that even former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had not done this, adding that it amounted to dictatorship.
“This is the fear of Narendra Modi… Not even Indira Gandhi did this during the Emergency. All we wanted to do is a peaceful protest, and they are picking us up from the flight like we are criminals,” he said in the video.
“This is dictatorship, where Delhi Police has entered the flight and is trying to arrest us. Come on, arrest us. We are here to be arrested. Come on, arrest us. We are here to be arrested… We are not afraid of you,” Dipke said.
New Delhi virtually turned khaki on Saturday, with more than 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel deployed ahead of the CJP protest.
Barricades lined the streets, 45 metro stations were closed, and intensive checks were carried out at the city’s border points, railway stations, bus terminals, hotels and other sensitive locations, leaving the capital gridlocked.
More than 7,000 protesters were detained across Delhi on Saturday, including more than 2,000 in the New Delhi area, police sources said.