Indian police arrest the leader of the "cockroaches" student movement ahead of another massive protest

NEW DELHI.– Indian police on Friday arrested the founder of the "cockroaches" movement, Abhijeet Dipke, ahead of a demonstration he had called in the capital's financial district, in another of the numerous rallies demanding electoral transparency. The youth-led Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), along with opposition groups and student organizations, has held protests almost daily this month to demand the resignation of Election Commission chief Gyanesh Kumar, following a revision of voter rolls that favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). More than 130 million voters were removed during the revision, but the Election Commission denied favoring any party and said voters removed "by mistake" can re-register. The BJP accused its rivals of trying to undermine democracy by improperly questioning legitimate electoral processes. The leader of the "cockroaches," Abhijeet Dipke, holds a press conference on Thursday, October 15ARUN SANKAR - AFP Dipke called Friday's protest in support of two CJP leaders detained and jailed for five days this week for demonstrating at a protest site, thereby violating a ban. His group and other left-wing student organizations had urged supporters to gather this Friday at Central Park, located in the busy shopping and dining district of Connaught Place in New Delhi, to wave and raise the national flag. Preventive detentionThe live video posted on the CJP's Instagram account showed Dipke leaving a house and walking toward the street, where several police officers detained him and, after a brief argument, took him away in a patrol car. "We are detaining you right now," an officer told him. "I haven't broken any law right now... how can you detain me?" the activist retorted. Earlier, police had met with Dipke and warned him not to go ahead with the protest. Followers of the "cockroaches" wave Indian flags during the demonstration in central DelhiARUN SANKAR - AFP The protest was linked to the arrests on Tuesday of leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das on charges of entering an unauthorized space, according to Dipke himself. "They have been sent to judicial custody for five days," he said on social media. Das and Ranka were detained for entering the traditional protest site of Jantar Mantar, a day after the government announced that the street in central New Delhi was no longer authorized for demonstrations. A video posted online by Dipke showed the two young men crossing the barricades set up on Jantar Mantar street and running into the empty space waving the Indian flag. Police are then seen chasing and detaining them. Last Saturday and Sunday, security forces carried out thousands of arrests — more than 20,000 according to the local press — to prevent protesters from gathering in the streets of the Indian capital. The protests have turned into a widespread revolt against the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accused of authoritarian drift since coming to power in 2014. Reuters and AFP agencies