The founder of India’s “cockroach” protest movement, Abhijeet Dipke, has been detained in Delhi ahead of a planned march in the heart of the capital.
His detention follows a police warning against holding Friday’s march, with thousands of security personnel deployed across the city to prevent the gathering.
Dipke’s youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) is demanding the resignation of India’s election chief over allegations of voter list manipulation. The Election Commission denies the charge.
The group had asked its supporters to come to a park in Connaught Place, one of Delhi’s busiest commercial districts, to wave the Indian flag.
The turnout was smaller than at earlier CJP demonstrations though the crowd seemed to be swelling. The BBC saw some young protesters being detained and shoved into a bus which already held some female detainees – there were about 50 female police personnel in the bus, vastly outnumbering the protesters.
Dipke had just left home and was moments away from reaching his vehicle when the BBC saw police officers surround him and force him into a police car. Some CJP supporters tried to block the vehicle from leaving.
Anish Gawande, the opposition politician at whose house Dipke had been staying, questioned why police had detained him. Police have not yet publicly confirmed the grounds for the detention.
“Detaining a lone man walking with the national flag in his hand is a bit of a joke,” Gawande said.
It was the second time in less than a week that Dipke was detained. Last Saturday, police boarded his plane shortly after it landed in Delhi and took him away before he could reach a planned demonstration.
Police barricades and mass detentions prevented thousands of other protesters from reaching the venue. Dipke was released the following day, but two other CJP leaders – Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka – were later jailed for five days after entering Jantar Mantar, a protest site recently declared off-limits by police.
Friday’s march was partly intended to show solidarity with the two jailed leaders.
Dipke had acknowledged the possibility of being arrested again. In a video message on Thursday, he urged supporters unable to travel to Delhi to raise the Indian flag in their own towns and cities.
“I also may be jailed after this, but I am not worried. Tricolour is my pride and I will raise it,” he said.
Earlier on Friday, police had served Dipke with a notice warning him against holding the march without permission.
Authorities also closed Central Park for two days, citing “administrative reasons”. Police offered to let a small group wave the national flag and sing the anthem at another location.
The CJP responded by changing its plans, urging supporters to enter Connaught Place in groups of fewer than five, unfurl the flag, take a photograph and leave.
“Waving the Tiranga is not a crime,” the group said in a social media poster, using the Hindi name for India’s tricolour flag. It encouraged supporters to share their photographs online.
