India detains thousands to crush 'Cockroach' protest — SkimNews
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- Indian authorities detained thousands of protesters Saturday in a sweeping crackdown across New Delhi, deploying barricades at Jantar Mantar, anti-riot vehicles with tear gas launchers, mobile internet restrictions and a ban on gatherings of five or more.
- Police preemptively arrested "Cockroach" movement leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka at Delhi airport upon their arrival from Mumbai, with video shared on X showing officers boarding the aircraft.
- The "Cockroach" movement, which launched online in May, forced Modi's education minister to resign in July over alleged exam paper leaks — a rare political setback for a prime minister who has held power for more than 12 years.
- The protests center on the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision, which has removed more than 130 million names from voter lists; demonstrators demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
- BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra dismissed the demonstrators as "anarchic elements," while opposition lawmakers, including briefly detained Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, joined calls for an end to the voter revision.
- Opposition parties accuse the Election Commission of disproportionately removing voters likely to support them while sparing or adding BJP supporters; the commission and government reject the allegations of manipulation.
Why it matters: The crackdown shows Modi's government is deploying extraordinary preemptive force against a youth movement that already extracted a minister's resignation, while state elections next year in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat — Modi's home state — will test whether the protest energy translates into political damage for the ruling party.
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