Indian police continue crackdown as ‘cockroach’ leaders freed

India's police are barricading roads and forcefully dispersing and detaining demonstrators as the youth-led "cockroach protests" continue against the country's election commissioner on Sunday, even as the group's leaders were released from detention.

Police detained Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), and two other leaders on Saturday before they could disembark after arriving in the capital from Mumbai.

Their release comes as the police are continuing to crackdown on protesters, having detained and released almost 7,000 people since Saturday, including activists, journalists, and leaders of political parties.

"There's a huge crackdown on the dissent," a journalist based in Delhi told The New Arab, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There's heavy barricading on roads, and even today, there were many protesters who tried to assemble at different locations around central Delhi, but the force dispersed them."

"Some were brutally detained, dragged on roads."

The journalist says there are reports of at least seven reporters being detained at RK Ashram Marg in central Delhi on Sunday. The journalist also said the internet was shut down for 24 hours in the area.

"Trains were cancelled, borders were sealed, so that protesters could not reach," he said.

Now, protesters are demonstrating against a move that removed over 133 million names from electoral lists, disproportionately affecting minorities, particularly Muslims, potentially benefiting Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A video posted by Dipke shows the leaders being detained before they could reach the planned protest site, reportedly to thwart the protests. The CJP founder's grandmother had died while he was arrested on Saturday.

After his release, Dipke said: "The CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated". He also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his administration.

"Modi, as PM, is an embarrassment to India," he said. "Never has this country seen a bigger coward and bully."

After their release, two of Dipke's senior associates, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, held a press conference in Delhi, saying they refuse to give in to the government until their demands are met.

"The government should have invited us to come forward with a delegation, sit down for talks, listen to our demands and assure us that they would act on them. But instead, a situation has been created where the state is at war with its own citizens," said Saurav Das, co-convenor of CJP, at a press conference at the Press Club of India on Sunday.

Das also said police took phones from protesters.

Despite the CJP calling for protesters to march around the Jantar Mantar site, the road that the demonstrators had occupied for weeks, police have barricaded the whole area.

"[The police] shut down the internet, and they shut down the metros. They closed the borders to stop protesters from reaching the site," the Delhi-based journalist told TNA.

Ratna Singh, the CJP's head lawyer, said in a social media post that an executive magistrate's court had released Dipke and the others.

She said they had been released on the condition that they made "no breach of peace for one year". Police have not commented on the detentions.

Activist and social media influencer Dhruv Rathee, who was detained at home, was also released.

Ranka and Das said that the condition did not mean they couldn't protest.

The CJP founders have continued protesting since the movement launched in May as a satirical protest. Demonstrations organised by the CJP over exam irregularities in July forced the education minister to resign, marking a rare climbdown by Modi's administration.

Saturday's detentions triggered sharp criticism and accusations that Modi's government was stifling dissent.

"The protest is ongoing, and let's see what will happen in the coming days," the journalist said.