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Indian police on Saturday detained Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, along with two other leaders as authorities locked down the capital to stop a protest demanding the resignation of the country’s chief election commissioner.
Dipke and fellow leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were detained from their flight after landing in Delhi from Mumbai, the movement said, after police banned the rally planned at the Jantar Mantar protest site.
The protest targets Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a voter-list revision that removed about 130 million names, which critics say favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, posing a fresh challenge to Modi months before key state elections.
About 200 protesters were detained in central New Delhi, a police source told Reuters, while police said popular YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was detained outside the city.
Metro stations and markets were shut, mobile internet was suspended, and trains were canceled.
More than 20,000 police and paramilitary personnel were deployed, according to the Press Trust of India. The Cockroach Janta Party says "at least 10,000 people" have been detained across the country.
India's Supreme Court on Friday questioned the curbs, saying some trains must still run and there should be no blanket closure of metro stations.
"Why is the prime minister so scared of the country’s youth, the country’s people?" Dipke told ANI before leaving Mumbai. "Why did you need to close all the railways, The metro, and the internet has been closed, roads have been closed? This is nothing but fear."
"You can detain the people, you cannot detain the movement," said Neha Bora, a leading face of the protest.
Delhi police said permission was denied because notice was given at short notice and the group had not followed police directions at an earlier protest, senior official Nupur Prasad said.
Police called the curbs "temporary and precautionary."
The protests followed an Indian Express report last month that Kumar’s deputies had questioned him over the list revisions.
Kumar has not commented, but the Election Commission and the BJP have denied the allegations.
Election Commission data shows the deletions include 63 million people who relocated, 30 million who could not be traced, and 28 million who died. The commission says the exercise is not complete, and wrongly removed voters can re-enroll.
The BJP has accused the opposition Congress party of "trying to create anarchy" by using the Election Commission. The Cockroach Janta Party led protests in July that forced the education minister to resign over exam paper leaks.
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