Around 1,000 protesters were detained across the national Capital on Saturday while on their way to take part in the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led agitation against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, police said.
The Hindu newspaper said as many as 3,000 protesters had been detained, although it was not immediately possible to verify that number.
Dozens of protesters were taken away in police vehicles after they tried to march to the Jantar Mantar protest site in central Delhi, shouting anti-government slogans, AFP reporters saw.
Several Opposition leaders, including former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, AAP national convener and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and former Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, were on Saturday detained by the police while attempting to join the protest,
Journalists from some media outlets, including the Scroll and Newslaundry, were also detained briefly.
Security has been beefed up across the National Capital Region (NCR), including border areas, in view of the protests.
Indian Railways cancelled and rescheduled several trains that were set to arrive in New Delhi, while the DMRC has shut the entry and exit of 45 Metro stations amid measures taken by the Delhi Police to stop agitators from reaching the protest venue at Jantar Mantar.
The police had said on Friday that permission for the CJP’s protest had been denied due to the organisers’ failure to comply with legal directions and their own undertakings during an earlier protest.
Earlier on Saturday, CJP leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were detained by the police from Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi while on their way to Jantar Mantar to stage a protest, demanding CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Delhi Police personnel entered the aircraft carrying Dipke after it landed at IGI Airport.
Dipke posted the video showing the Delhi Police team entering the flight as he, along with other CJP members, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were detained from the flight itself.
In a video posted on his social media handle, Dipke was heard telling the police, “…I have come here to be arrested; arrest me.”
The CJP announced the detentions in a post on its social media handle, stating: “Abhijeet Dipke DETAINED! Saurav Das DETAINED! Ashutosh Ranka DETAINED!”
Social media influencer Dhruv Rathee was also detained at his residence in Gurugram.
According to a post on the X handle of the CJP, around 50 police personnel in plain clothes reached Rathee’s residence in Gurugram at around 8 am and took him into preventive custody.
The demonstration is the culmination of weeks of opposition mobilisation following allegations of misconduct during a nationwide voter-roll revision by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Opposition parties and other critics say the voter-roll revision could disenfranchise millions of voters and benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
The ECI has rejected allegations of impropriety, saying the revision was intended to remove duplicate and ineligible voters.
Delhi has been under a strict security clampdown since Friday, with tens of thousands of police and paramilitary personnel deployed to stop those seeking to reach the main protest site in the heart of the city.