NEW DELHI (The Thursday Times) — A Delhi court on Wednesday ordered the release of Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, co-convenors of the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party, about a week after they were arrested for protesting at Jantar Mantar in defiance of a ban.
The two walked out of Tihar jail hours after a special executive magistrate passed the release order, according to the legal news website Bar and Bench. “Truth alone triumphs. Long live the revolution,” Das told reporters outside.
Over the barricades
Das and Ranka were among 14 people who climbed barricades and a locked gate on October 13 to get into Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, a day after it was removed from the list of designated protest sites. They were detained for trespassing and denied any wrongdoing.
The group is demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Critics accuse the Election Commission of manipulating voter rolls to favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party through the Special Intensive Revision, which has removed about 130 million names from the lists since last year. The commission says it is only taking out ineligible, dead and duplicate voters, and both it and the BJP reject the accusation.
From internet joke to street movement
The Cockroach Janta Party began as an online joke in May, after India’s top judge compared unemployed young people to “cockroaches”. It is not a registered party. It grew out of protests over leaked exam papers, and a march towards parliament in July ended in clashes with police. The unrest contributed to the resignation of India’s education minister.
The movement has also drawn hostility from the ruling party: at a Dussehra event in Delhi this month, a BJP minister burned a cockroach effigy, calling it a symbol of “jihadism” and “traitors”.∎
