Delhi Police detained CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka during a protest at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday. The group climbed barricades to reach the site after the Centre denotified it. Founder Abhijeet Dipke said, "You cannot denotify the resistance." Protesters now must use Ramlila Ground, Burari, or CBD Ground.
A day after Centre denotified Jantar Mantar as a protest site, a bunch of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) volunteers led by its leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das landed at the site early on Tuesday morning.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke posted a video of a flash protest at Jantar Mantar where CJP volunteers were seen climbing an iron gate and a police barricade to reach Jantar Mantar to protest.
The protesters were later detained by the Delhi Police, Dipke said in his post.
In the video of the protest, CJP leader Ranka and Das alongwith a few volunteers can be seen jumping a gate with flags in their hands and entering the area to stage a protest. The group raised slogans as they were chased by the police who were stationed there. The protesters had a little run in with cops who tried to stop them while they raised Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Inquilab Zindabaad slogans. The protesters were later detained and taken away.
"You cannot denotify the resistance," a defiant Dipke posted challenging the Centre's order to denotify Jantar Mantar as a protest site.
Jantar Mantar in the high-security central Delhi area, which so far had served as a designated protest site, will no longer be used for this purpose.
Three new locations have been finalised as designated sites for protests and sit-ins in the national capital based on recommendations of a committee under the Union Home Ministry.
The three new protest venues are: Ramlila Ground, Burari Ground and CBD Ground in east Delhi.
The development came amid protests by the Opposition bloc INDIA and the CJP in central Delhi against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the special intensive revision (SIR) controversy.