{"id":2654,"date":"2026-10-14T08:30:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/10\/14\/cjp-leaders-jailed-jantar-mantar-protest\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T08:30:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:30:44","slug":"cjp-leaders-jailed-jantar-mantar-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/10\/14\/cjp-leaders-jailed-jantar-mantar-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Two CJP Leaders Sent to Jail After Scaling Jantar Mantar Barricades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"9fece8afa224fd09e54b043d0febfb58\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- NR ATF -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8898941184964366\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4839033563\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>Delhi&#8217;s Special Executive Magistrate Court ordered five days of judicial custody for Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, senior figures of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), after they were arrested for entering a restricted protest zone at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday. The two activists, part of a larger group that scaled a locked gate and crossed police barricades, were taken before a magistrate on Wednesday and remanded while their fellow activist, Ajinkya Shinde, was released on personal bond.<\/p>\n<h2>Arrests and Judicial Custody<\/h2>\n<p>\u5728 a 2023\u20112024 context, Jantar Mantar has been a historic site for demonstrations, but police recently removed it from the list of authorized protest locations. The CJP members,\u5305\u62ec Das and Ranka, were among those who defied the new restrictions, climbing over barriers and carrying Indian flags while chanting slogans. Police charged the trio with trespassing, breaching a peace bond, violating prohibitory orders and obstructing public officials. The two leaders denied all allegations, and their legal team asserted that they were denied access to counsel for several hours before being transferred to a police station in a private vehicle around 03:00 local time.<\/p>\n<h2>Political Reactions and Statements<\/h2>\n<p>Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who has been conducting separate protests against the Election Commission, condemned the arrests as \u201can act of cowardice.\u201d In a post on X, Gandhi expressed solidarity with students, youth, journalists and the broader \u201cINDIA bloc,\u201d emphasizing that all protests share a common goal of defending constitutional rights. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, who arrived in Delhi after the arrests, accused the government of stifling dissent and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to formally declare an Emergency, drawing a parallel to the 1970s period when civil liberties were suspended under then\u2011Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.<\/p>\n<p>Dipke\u2019s comments, shared on social media, were accompanied by video footage showing Das and Ranka scaling police barricades, brandishing the national flag and chanting. He wrote, \u201cYou cannot denotify the resistance,\u201d underscoring the movement\u2019s determination to continue protests despite the new limitations.<\/p>\n<h2>Police Restrictions and Protest Environment<\/h2>\n<p>In the days leading up to the arrests, Delhi police imposed extensive security measures, shutting down several metro stations and deploying thousands of officers and paramilitary forces to prevent demonstrators from reaching Jantar Mantar. Reports indicated that thousands of participants,\u5305\u62ec journalists, were detained and later released, with some\u89c6\u9891 showing\u8b66\u5bdf forcibly dragging protesters onto buses\u3002 Following the weekend\u7684 demonstrations, authorities officially removed Jantar Mantar from the roster of approved protest venues, instead designating Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground as the only permitted sites. The CJP criticized this move, warning that it would diminish the visibility of protests and make it harder for citizens to be heard.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the restrictions, the activists returned to Jantar Mantar on Tuesday, climbing over the police\u2011set barricades. Ratna Singh, the head of the CJP\u2019s legal team, rejected the police claim that the group had publicly called others to join the demonstration, labeling it \u201cabsolutely false.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Background of the Cockroach Janta Party<\/h2>\n<p>The CJP originated from student\u2011led protests earlier in the year, initially focusing on exam irregularities and broader education reforms. Those protests contributed to the resignation of the federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The movement later adopted a satirical moniker after India\u2019s Chief Justice Surya Kant likened unemployed youth to \u201ccockroaches\u201d during a court hearing in May. Although the Chief Justice later clarified that his remarks were misinterpreted, the term resonated with young people demanding systemic change.<\/p>\n<p>Transitioning from an online satire group to a pressure organization, the CJP expanded its agenda to include unemployment, education policy and governmental accountability. In early October, the group launched a nationwide protest in Mumbai after an Indian Express report alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had ignored objections from two fellow commissioners regarding changes to voter registration. The report claimed that commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised concerns at least 14 times over ten months about decisions made without their knowledge, including alterations to voter databases and electoral rolls. The Election Commission has denied any wrongdoing, stating that its decisions were unanimous.<\/p>\n<p>The controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has intensified scrutiny of the voter verification process, which opposition parties allege benefits Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party. Both the Election Commission and the government have rejected these allegations.<\/p>\n<p>While the CJP has not formally aligned its protests with opposition parties, its actions have coincided with demonstrations led by figures such as Rahul Gandhi, who himself has been detained during protests in multiple cities. The convergence of these movements underscores a broader climate of dissent concerning electoral transparency and democratic rights in India.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka of the Cockroach Janta Party were placed in five\u2011day judicial custody after climbing a locked gate at Delhi&#8217;s Jantar Mantar, sparking condemnation from opposition leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[299],"tags":[1403,1840,216,2726,510],"class_list":["post-2654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cjp","tag-election-commission","tag-india","tag-jantar-mantar","tag-protest","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}