Delhi police have filed a complaint (an FIR, or first information report) against opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and others, accusing them of forcing their way into a government building during a protest march. The demonstrations, joined by opposition parties and the Gen Z-led "Cockroach" youth movement, demand the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a nationwide voter list revision that has removed more than 130 million names; the opposition says it favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, which the election commission and the party deny. The Cockroach Janta Party says thousands of its supporters have been detained ahead of a major rally planned for Saturday at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, a claim police have not yet addressed and Reuters could not verify, posing a fresh political challenge to Modi.
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Indian opposition leaders face police charges over protest against voter list changes[Updated]
Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke and two other leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were released on Sunday after nearly 24 hours in detention, the group's legal head Ratna Singh said. They were freed by an executive magistrate at Delhi Cantt Police Station on condition of "no breach of peace for one year," and the CJP has called for another round of protests in Delhi on Sunday. The group's Ajinkya Shinde said more than 15,000 protesters had been detained on Saturday, a figure police have not commented on; Delhi Police had refused permission for the Jantar Mantar rally and deployed tens of thousands of security personnel, barricaded roads, suspended the internet and cancelled trains to the capital. The UN human rights office said it was concerned by reports of mass detentions of demonstrators, lawyers and journalists and urged the immediate release of anyone arbitrarily held, a statement India's government rejected as "unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of India." YouTuber Dhruv Rathee has also been released, Gurugram police said.
The Cockroach Janta Party said Thursday that at least 10,000 people had been detained across India, including members of CJP demonstrations, student organisations, affiliated grassroots groups and political parties. Among those held were party spokesperson Deepak Baliyan and a group of students from Pune who were travelling to Delhi for the planned protest and were taken by bus to an unknown location, the movement said. Videos posted on X showed activists being led away in vans, but Reuters could not verify the claims or footage, and police did not respond to requests for comment; no independent source has confirmed the numbers. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke responded to one such video by asking: "Why not just declare emergency?"