Indian police detain protesters over voter roll changes

NEW DELHI, Oct 3: Indian police detained several people in the capital New Delhi on Saturday, disrupting a second day of protests backed by the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party and other opposition groups against changes to voter rolls.

The protesters say the changes benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing party and are demanding the resignation of India's election chief.

The demonstrations mark the latest in a series of youth-led protests that have emerged this year, putting pressure on Modi unprecedented in his 12 years in power.

About 100 demonstrators removed security barricades on Saturday and chanted "vote thief, leave the post" and "Gyanesh Kumar, step down" before police forcibly detained some of them.

Independent Member of Parliament Kapil Sibal, left-wing All India Students' Association President Neha Bora and political activists Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav were among the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

The police declined comment on the number and identity of those detained.

"First they removed people from the voters list and now they are not letting us raise our voice against this. This is not acceptable," Bora told Reuters.

The chief of the Election Commission, Kumar, has not commented on the protests and the demands to step down.
On Friday, police stopped a group of protesters from gathering, bundling them into buses. Several nearby metro stations remained shut amid tight security.

Though police released many of those detained on Friday, they charged several of them with allegedly violating orders banning mass gatherings in Delhi, according to a police source.

Critics say a nationwide voter-verification exercise launched last year has led to millions of eligible voters being removed from electoral rolls.

The commission, long regarded as one of the country's most trusted institutions, says the exercise is intended to remove duplicate, deceased or ineligible voters.

On Friday the commission directed officials to register newly eligible voters and those omitted from electoral rolls.

HT adds, the Shivaji Park police registered a case against Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders AbhijeetDipke, Pranav Ahire, AshutoshRanka, AjinkyaShinde, Saurabh Das, Afreen Nawaz, SaumyaKorde, Ankit Bharadwaj, Vijay Malangi and Yogesh Ingle, and over 400 of their supporters for gathering illegally and sloganeering in Dadar on Friday.

“We have registered a case against the organisers of CJP protests on October 2 at Shivaji Park. The case has been registered under sections 189 (unlawful assembly) and 223 (disobedience to a public servant’s lawful order) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and section 37 (power to prohibit certain acts for prevention of disorder) and 135 (disobeying or breaking official orders issued by the police) of the Maharashtra Police Act,” said a police officer attached to the Shivaji Park police station.

The Mumbai police denied permission to the CJP’s representative AjinkyaShinde for organising the protests at Shivaji Park, saying they were not empowered to grant permission for any gathering at the historical ground, in view of the judgment of the Bombay High Court in PIL 116/2009 dated January 4, 2013, and a subsequent order of the Maharashtra government dated January 20, 2016.

In the letter issued to CJP, police cited a 2013 Bombay high court order restricting the use of Shivaji Park for purposes other than sports. Police also said the organisers had not submitted the required BMC permission for using the ground. Citing the area’s residential and silence-zone status, police said the proposed protest could cause noise pollution and severe traffic congestion, potentially affecting access to several hospitals in the area.

The applicant was advised to look for alternate venues in Mumbai for the protest and ask for permission, which will be considered appropriately. However, the movement’s founder, AbhijeetDipke had threatened a Jail BharoAndolan on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, said the officer.

Officer said Dipke was aware that permission had been denied. He himself wrote in a post on X, “Mumbai Police has denied permission for our protest on October 2. Such tactics to suppress citizens’ voices are unacceptable.”

The CJP organised protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar following allegations of irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and reports indicating that he had either ignored the opposition of the two election commissioners to certain commission decisions regarding the SIR or kept them in the dark.�"AGENCIES