New Delhi, October 14, 2026 – Two senior leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were sent to five days of judicial custody in Tihar Jail on Wednesday after a Special Executive Magistrate ordered their remand. Their associate Ajinkya Shinde walked free after signing a fresh peace bond. The three had been placed under preventive arrest following their alleged unauthorised entry into Jantar Mantar a day earlier.
According to police sources and multiple reports, the incident unfolded on Tuesday morning, October 13. A group of around 14 CJP members, including Das, Ranka and Shinde, reached the area near the JD(U) office adjoining Jantar Mantar. They reportedly used a lane, climbed over a locked iron gate, entered the site, unfurled the national flag and raised slogans demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The slogans included calls for Kumar to step down over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, along with “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.”
Jantar Mantar had been denotified as a designated protest venue just a day earlier, on October 12. Delhi Police had identified alternative sites such as Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground for demonstrations. Officers said the CJP group breached barricades and entered without authorisation. All 14 were detained and initially taken to a police station some distance away. Phones were seized, according to the party.
Delhi Police registered a case against the three leaders on charges that include trespassing, violating prohibitory orders, breaching a peace bond and obstructing a public servant from discharging official duties. Sources indicated the action also involved provisions under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) related to preventing breach of peace. Das and Ranka were treated as repeat violators because they had signed bonds only days earlier promising to maintain peace for one year.
That earlier bond stemmed from a detention on Saturday, October 10. Das, Ranka and CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke had been detained after landing in Delhi ahead of a planned protest. An executive magistrate ordered their release the next day on the condition that they maintain peace and good behaviour for a year. Police sources said the Tuesday entry at Jantar Mantar amounted to a clear breach of those conditions.
On Wednesday morning, the three were produced before the Special Executive Magistrate at Mandir Marg. Das and Ranka were remanded to five days’ judicial custody and lodged in Tihar Jail. Shinde was allowed to leave after completing bond formalities. CJP’s legal team, including advocate Abhisht Hela and legal head Ratna Singh, described the process as involving preventive arrest. Singh stated on X that the leaders had not been allowed to meet their lawyers until late at night and were brought to Parliament Street police station around 3 am in a private van. She maintained their spirits remained high despite what the party called illegal actions.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke reacted strongly. In posts on X, he accused the government of crushing dissent and using “cowardly tactics.” He shared video footage of the Tuesday entry showing members scaling the gate with the tricolour and raised slogans. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” he wrote, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Later, after the custody order, Dipke said Das and Ranka had shown the country that the only way to stand up to what he called a bully was never to bow down, no matter the consequences.
The broader context is CJP’s ongoing campaign against the SIR exercise and related electoral concerns. The party has staged several protests in recent days, leading to multiple detentions. Police have maintained that the denotification of Jantar Mantar followed legal requirements, including compliance with a Supreme Court order, and that alternative venues remain available. Officials stressed that the leaders’ actions after signing peace bonds left little room for leniency.
Reports from India Today, The Indian Express, Rediff, The Print, The Quint and others confirmed the custody order and the sequence of events. Police sources consistently described the entry as unauthorised trespass after the site’s status change. CJP continues to frame the episode as an attempt to silence protest. Das and Ranka will remain in Tihar for the five-day period unless further legal developments intervene. Shinde’s release on bond closes one chapter of the immediate case while the larger dispute over protest spaces and electoral processes continues.
The episode highlights the tight restrictions now placed on one of Delhi’s traditional protest locations and the swift use of preventive measures and bond conditions against organisers who return to the same site. Both sides – police and CJP – have drawn clear lines. One insists on law and designated venues; the other insists the right to protest cannot be denotified. For now, two of the party’s most visible faces are behind bars for five days.
Sources:
- India Today
- The Indian Express
- Rediff
- The Print
- The Quint
- Business Today
- NDTV
- LiveMint
- Economic Times
- The Week
@Rohit Manral