Indian ‘cockroach’ party founder freed from detention

NEW DELHI - Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke was released from detention on Saturday, a day after his arrest during a police crackdown on protests against the election authority.

Dipke, 31, was detained on Friday in New Delhi as he headed to join a rally that the CJP protest movement had called in the capital’s central Connaught Place district.

He walked out of a police station on Saturday afternoon, waving to the media and giving a thumbs up as he was driven away, an AFP photographer saw.

“Abhijeet Dipke released,” CJP legal affairs chief Ratna Singh said on social media.

Opposition parties and CJP activists have defied a security crackdown, rallying to demand the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner after accusing the poll body of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

The commission, which oversees voting in the world’s most populous nation, has denied any wrongdoing.

Two other senior CJP leaders, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, were arrested on October 14 after entering Jantar Mantar, a decades-old protest site that police have declared off-limits for demonstrations. They remain in custody.

Members of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have long alleged that large numbers of undocumented Muslim migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh have fraudulently entered India’s electoral rolls.

Rights groups and critics, however, say Modi’s government has eroded democratic freedoms during more than a decade in power, citing pressure on journalists, civil society groups and political opponents — allegations the government rejects.