NEW DELHI (AP) — Leaders of a prominent Indian youth movement announced plans to continue protests following their release from detention on Sunday. This occurred a day after police enforced a crackdown on demonstrations opposing a controversial revision of voter lists. The movement is calling for the resignation of the country's election chief.
The protests were sparked by the removal of over 130 million voters from the list since last year, which critics argue is politically motivated. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission have denied any allegations of manipulation.
The three leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party — Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das, and Ashutosh Ranka — were released under the condition that they commit to "no breach of peace for one year," according to Ratna Singh, the movement's legal director, in a social media post. The implications of this condition for their future participation in protests remain unclear.
Police detained the leaders upon their arrival in New Delhi from Mumbai on Saturday, just as they were preparing to lead a demonstration.
After his release, Dipke criticized Modi, stating, "Never has this country seen a bigger coward and bully," in a post on X.
Das, a spokesperson for the movement, encouraged supporters to continue protesting, stating, "A situation has been created where the state is at war with its own citizens," during a press conference on Sunday.
Following the protests on Saturday, authorities implemented a significant security crackdown in the capital, detaining over 2,000 protesters, including several opposition lawmakers. Train services to the capital were suspended, metro stations were closed, and mobile internet access was restricted in certain areas of the city. Most detainees were released later that evening, according to police reports.
On Sunday, small groups of protesters returned to the streets of New Delhi, where police quickly dispersed most demonstrations, leading to additional detentions.
The protesters are demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, the chief election commissioner. Modi's party has defended the voter list revision as necessary to remove duplicate and ineligible entries.
The Cockroach movement originated as a satirical online campaign this summer after India's chief justice likened unemployed youth to parasites. Many young Indians adopted the cockroach as a symbol of resilience in response to this remark.
The group's protests previously resulted in the resignation of Modi's education minister in July, marking a rare setback for the prime minister, who has held office for over 12 years.