An Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests. The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week. On Wednesday, a special magistrate ordered that Das and Ranka be released, despite efforts by police to keep them in prison.
They were made to sign a bond pledging no further breach of peace. Their arrest came after a draconian police crackdown on a CJP march held in the capital two weeks ago to protest alleged manipulation of the country’s electoral roll, which led to the barricading of central Delhi and thousands of young people being detained. Das and Ranka were taken into custody for a second time days later after they jumped police barricades and held up an Indian flag at a site in central Delhi that police had cordoned off.
The pair were charged with trespass and violating the peace and sent to jail for five days, which was then extended by two further days. Their detention had provoked outrage among leaders and supporters of the youth movement, who accused the government of “cowardice” for jailing CJP leaders for holding a peaceful protest. After the magistrate’s ruling on Wednesday evening, Das said that “truth has triumphed”.
The release of the two leaders is likely to come as a blow to the ruling Narendra Modi government, which has implemented an unforgiving crackdown on recent protests that have erupted across India. The CJP, alongside the opposition alliance, student groups and civil society, have been calling for the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, who is accused of overseeing a revision of the electoral roll that benefits Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and has led to more than 130 million names being deleted from the voter register. The BJP has denied any interference.
The CJP began as an online satire earlier this year, but has since grown into a fully fledged political movement, challenging the powerful Modi government. Over the summer, it was Cockroach-led protests that forced the resignation of Modi’s education minister after sustained demonstrations. Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the CJP movement, vowed over the weekend that the Modi regime and threat of jail would not intimidate the Cockroaches.
Dipke was also detained on Friday after he called for a peaceful demonstration in central Delhi where CJP supporters would gather and wave the Indian flag in solidarity with Das and Ranka. He had said that, once his fellow Cockroach leaders were released, they would “gather, re-strategise, and determine how to move forward”. This is a long battle and we are prepared for it.”
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