Opposition Leaders Condemn Arrests of CJP Protesters at Jantar Mantar
Opposition leaders and the INDIA bloc demand the restoration of Jantar Mantar as a protest site after police arrested Cockroach Janata Party leaders.
The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) and the INDIA bloc are demanding the restoration of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site following the arrest of CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka. The leaders were remanded to five days of judicial custody in Tihar Jail after allegedly trespassing through private property to enter the 18th-century observatory. The site had been denotified as a protest venue on October 11 by Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar.
The protesters entered the site to raise the Tricolour and shout slogans against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial special intensive revision of electoral rolls. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke accused Kumar of rigging elections to keep Narendra Modi in power. In response to the arrests, Dipke organized a gathering of supporters at Connaught Place for October 16.
Several high-profile political figures condemned the crackdown. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi stated that Jantar Mantar belongs to the people and called for its reclamation. Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy argued that the arrests would only aggravate the situation, while BRS Working President K.T. Rama Rao described the judicial custody as a new level of Emergency. Meanwhile, Indian Youth Congress chief Uday Bhanu Chib filed a petition in the Delhi High Court challenging the denotification of the site. The BJP has dismissed the protests as attempts to destabilize constitutional bodies.
