New Delhi Police Detain Thousands of 'Cockroach' Movement Protesters; Controversy Over Removal of Over 130 Million Voters From Electoral Rolls Runs Alongside Crackdown

New Delhi police on Saturday launched a large-scale security operation against a youth protest demanding the resignation of India's chief election commissioner. According to Al Jazeera, thousands were intercepted, dispersed, or dragged into police vehicles across New Delhi and sent to temporary detention centers; multiple movement leaders, opposition lawmakers, and student activists were taken into custody before reaching the city center, with the rally effectively dismantled before it could take shape.

Police set up checkpoints, erected barricades, and deployed riot-control vehicles equipped with tear gas launchers on key routes leading to the city center. Live footage and descriptions from Al Jazeera showed security forces intercepting buses and private cars at multiple intersections, trapping large numbers of demonstrators on the roads.

A few still broke through the cordon, shouting anti-Modi and anti-election-commission slogans, before being detained. Tanya Negi, a university student who had traveled from Mumbai, told Al Jazeera: "We are a democratic country, and peaceful protest is being crushed by force. Why is Modi afraid of India's young people?"

The protest was organized by a youth group calling itself the "Cockroach Janta Party." According to Al Jazeera, the movement originated in cyberspace in May and surged in July amid nationwide protests over a leaked exam scandal — a scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of the education minister in Modi's government. The movement's current focus is the "Special Intensive Revision" (SIR) being rolled out by the election commission; opposition parties accuse the mechanism of having removed more than 130 million names from the voter rolls, depriving large numbers of voters — particularly their own supporters — of the right to vote.

The election commission and the government have both denied any political bias, but Al Jazeera noted that, with elections in several key states drawing closer, the authorities' crackdown has again raised questions about the continued shrinking of space for dissent within India. Authorities said the rally application was "filed late" and therefore not approved; ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Sambit Patra dismissed the demonstrators as "anarchists," calling the protest "a failed performance."

Currently, no official figure for the total number of those detained has been released; the specific procedural details behind the rejection of the protest application and the actual enforcement of the so-called "on-time submission" threshold cited by authorities have not been made public, and the election commission has yet to provide a point-by-point rebuttal of the accusation that 130 million names were removed.