CJP calls for protesters to stay in Delhi, says fresh stir 'on its way'

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Sunday called on protesters who had arrived in Delhi for a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to "stay back", saying a call for another protest was "on its way".

"All Cockroaches currently in Delhi should stay back. Next call on its way," the group said in a post on X. "For Cockroaches outside Delhi, the trains are running again."

This came hours after, at a press conference following their release from detention, the group's convenors said they will continue to stage peaceful protests at designated protest sites like Jantar Mantar because it was their constitutional right.

Delhi Police officers boarded an Air India flight at the capital's airport on Saturday morning and detained CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke as well as co-convenors Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka from their seats, shortly after the flight from Mumbai touched down ahead of their planned protest.

On Sunday, they were presented before an executive magistrate, who ordered their release on the condition that they "cannot breach peace" for one year.

Hours after they were released from detention, Das and Ranka, joined by legal affairs head Ratna Singh who was held separately, said the surety bond does not mean that they can't hold a peaceful protest.

"The election commission is compromised. Yesterday, you saw how all three of us were abducted inside a plane.... I want to make it clear that the fight is now on. Modi and Shah should be ashamed that they made this into a war," said Ranka.

They said there was an "emergency-like" situation in the national capital. "The state is at war with its own citizens. They are portraying our movement in a bad light by shutting 45 metro stations, shops, roads, railway services etc," said Das.

Das added their phones were taken away after their detention and they were told that no lawyer could be provided to them during detention.

"We suspect what all they must have done to our phones. We think they hacked our phones. Or cloned our phones. Maybe they planted evidence. And this is a rational doubt. Since they gave us no document and had our phones for over 24 hours," he added.

After his release, Dipke, whose grandmother passed away while he was detained, headed back to Maharashtra. "Heading back to my village to be with my family during this moment of grief... The CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated. October 10 will go down as the beginning of the end of this dictatorship," he wrote in a post on X.