India's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has accused authorities of detaining its members en masse in the days leading up to a significant anti-government protest planned for Saturday in Delhi. The CJP, which began as a satirical movement and is now emerging as a political force, states that at least 10,000 individuals from CJP demonstrations, student organisations, affiliated grassroots groups, and political parties have been detained across the country.
Thousands are anticipated to march to Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in New Delhi, on Saturday. The demonstrations are in response to a controversial revision of voter lists, which has seen over 130 million names removed so far. Opposition parties allege these removals disproportionately affect their supporters, while the election commission and government maintain the revision aims to remove duplicate and ineligible entries.
Ashutosh Ranka, a spokesperson for the CJP, made the detention claims in a post on X on Thursday. Videos posted on social media platform X reportedly showed activists being taken away in vans. Police authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.