A court ordered the release of two “cockroach” movement leaders, local media reported, after they were detained last week for demonstrating at a historic protest venue in violation of a ban.
A local court in the Indian capital of New Delhi ordered the release of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das lon Wednesday, legal website Live Law said.
Das and Ranka were among 14 people who scaled barricades on Oct13 to enter the Jantar Mantar observatory in central Delhi, a day after it was removed from a list of designated protest sites.
The group unfurled the national flag and chanted slogans demanding the chief election commissioner’s resignation before police detained them, with a court later sending them to prison for five days.
On Monday, their prison stay was extended for two more days.
The youth-led CJP, opposition parties and left-wing student organisations have held several protests this month demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar quit over a revision of voter lists they say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Election Commission has denied favouring any party and said wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol, while the BJP has accused rivals of trying to undermine democracy by wrongly questioning legitimate electoral processes.
The founder of the CJP, Abhijeet Dipke, was separately detained on Friday and released a day later for trying to lead another protest in New Delhi. — Reuters
