An FIR lodged by Delhi Police names Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka, and additional members of the Cockroach Janta Party over what authorities describe as an unauthorised entry into the Jantar Mantar area, according to officials speaking on Tuesday. According to information from within the police, the FIR incorporates provisions related to an earlier peace bond that all three leaders had formally agreed to and subsequently violated.
Hours after a group of demonstrators moved into the fortified gathering point, calls went up for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to step down — and that sequence of events preceded the police response by only a matter of hours. Authorities removed Jantar Mantar from the list of approved venues for public demonstrations.
Authorities took Das, Ranka, and a handful of fellow CJP members into custody on Tuesday morning, acting on reports that the group had moved into a restricted zone where prohibitory orders were in place. The group reported that roughly 11 of its people had been taken into custody.
According to an officer at the scene, those held in connection with the protests were brought to the Jaffarpur Kalan station, located within Dwarka district. Police presence around the station was reinforced after a number of CJP members assembled in the vicinity.
Dipke, who established CJP, told reporters that the Jantar Mantar site had been taken back by protesters, and that the authorities' move to denotify the location would not bring the organisation's ongoing agitation to a stop.
Dipke, Das, and Ranka were taken into custody on Saturday upon reaching Delhi, as authorities enforced a security operation that kept the group's demonstration — calling for Kumar's resignation — from going ahead. Release arrived the next morning, conditional on a signed agreement to remain law-abiding for a year.
On 11 October, a standing order put forward by Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar designated three venues — Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground, and CBD Ground — as the approved locations where protests and public demonstrations may be held. According to the CJP, the denotification notice was issued on 12 October — the very date its representatives visited Parliament Street Police Station to request a scheduled slot for a peaceful gathering at Jantar Mantar.
The group has pushed back against the decision, contending that relocating protests away from the country's seat of government would diminish the visibility of public opposition. A wave of detentions has unfolded across New Delhi at a time when multiple organisations have called for demonstrations directed at Kumar over questions surrounding the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.