Thousands of people were detained in New Delhi on Saturday as Indian authorities launched a large-scale security operation to block a protest by the youth-led "cockroach" movement demanding the resignation of the country's election commission chief.
Police were deployed across the Indian capital to seal off entrances to Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site, stopping buses and cars at checkpoints, erecting barricades and positioning riot-control vehicles equipped with tear gas launchers along major roads.
Many protesters were stopped long before they reached central New Delhi, driven back or pulled into police vehicles and taken to detention centers. Several movement leaders, opposition lawmakers and student activists were arrested en route, halting the march before it could begin.
Authorities said they had denied permission for the gathering because the request was filed late, and insisted the measures were necessary to maintain order. Sambit Patra, a spokesman for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, called the protesters "anarchist elements" staging a "failed spectacle."
Despite the crackdown, some protesters broke through police barricades, chanting slogans against Modi and the Election Commission of India (ECI), before being detained. "We are a democracy, yet peaceful protests are being suppressed with force," said Tanya Negi, a student who traveled from Mumbai. "Why is Modi afraid of India's youth?"
The movement, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), emerged online in May and gained prominence through protests over exam paper leaks, which led to the resignation of Modi's education minister in July.
The movement's latest campaign targets the ECI's Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which opposition parties say has removed more than 130 million names from voter rolls and disenfranchised their supporters.
The ECI and the government deny any political bias, but critics say the crackdown shows that space for dissent is narrowing as key state elections approach.
