Police detain youth protesters ahead of New Delhi voter list rally

Police detained protesters across New Delhi on Saturday and blocked access to a planned rally against changes to India’s voter lists, disrupting a demonstration by a youth movement demanding the resignation of the country’s election chief.

Barricades surrounded Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site, as officers stopped people arriving in the capital. Police detained Cockroach movement leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka after their flight from Mumbai landed in Delhi. The movement said officers intercepted them to prevent them from reaching what it called a peaceful demonstration.

Police said Friday that they had denied permission for the protest because its organizers submitted their request late, according to NPR. Loudspeaker announcements warned that gatherings of five or more people were banned in parts of the capital. Some demonstrators who reached the area chanted against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and election authorities before being detained.

“We are a democracy, yet peaceful protests are being crushed by force. Shouldn’t we fight for our rights?” Tanya Negi, a college student who traveled from Mumbai, told NPR. “Why is Modi afraid of India’s young people?”

The protesters want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign and the Election Commission to reverse its Special Intensive Revision of voter lists. More than 130 million names have been removed. Opposition parties say the exercise has disenfranchised eligible voters and disproportionately affected people likely to support them. The commission and the government reject allegations of manipulation, saying the revision removes duplicate and ineligible entries.

The dispute has brought together youth protesters and opposition groups challenging Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was briefly detained during protests earlier in the week, NPR reported.

Authorities also restricted access to parts of New Delhi and disrupted mobile internet service, according to NPR. Al Jazeera reported that nearly 30,000 security personnel were deployed and that authorities had canceled trains to the capital, closed more than 50 metro stations and imposed an internet shutdown. The Cockroach movement said thousands of people had been detained across India, Al Jazeera reported; NPR reported that authorities detained thousands of protesters Saturday.

The restrictions extended well beyond the rally site. NPR reported that police searched vehicles on routes into the capital. Al Jazeera reported that students traveling from other states were removed from trains and buses, while some would-be protesters were confined to their homes. Arif, a 24-year-old student organizer in Saharanpur, told Al Jazeera that police were watching his home to stop him from traveling to Delhi.

“This sort of crackdown, where we cannot peacefully express our dissent, is unseen in Delhi,” Sheeba Abdi, 57, who approached a police barricade in a wheelchair, told Al Jazeera. “Why has government turned this place into a fortress?”

The Cockroach movement began online in May and gained prominence through protests over alleged exam paper leaks. Those demonstrations led to the resignation of Modi’s education minister in July, according to NPR. The voter list dispute has since become the focus of its campaign. National elections are not due until 2029.