NEW DELHI: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka, who was detained along with several party leaders alleged on Monday that the Assam Police action was “completely illegal.”Ranka, who was later released, alleged that CJP members were picked up from private property without being informed of the grounds for their detention.Ranka alleged that the police failed to provide a specific reason for the action. “It wasn’t a detention. It was completely illegal because they picked us up from private property. We don’t call this detention; we call it kidnapping,” he said.“When we asked the police on what grounds we were detained, their only reply was, ‘Sir, we have orders from above, so we arrested you, detained you.’ And even after that, when we continuously asked while we were there, they couldn’t give us any other reason,” Ranka alleged.He also accused Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of attempting to suppress the organisation’s activities.“The government’s intention was to bully us. Hemanta Biswa Sarma wanted to intimidate us, but Hemanta Biswa Sarma made the same mistake that Amit Shah made on July 20th. The more you suppress, the more the revolution will spread,” he said.“Now, Assam CJP will see how students and youth issues will be raised in the coming times,” Ranka added.Ranka said CJP plans to expand its activities across Assam and other Northeastern states, focusing on issues concerning students and young people.“There are many issues in Assam; there are a lot of local issues here. The condition of schools here is very poor, especially in the remote areas where most schools don’t even have their own buildings,” he said.“A complete facade has been created in the name of development, but we want the country to see the reality of that development,” Ranka added. He said the organisation would also raise issues related to floods, Kaziranga and other local concerns.“All the student and youth-centric issues that the youth of Assam have been struggling with for a long time, we will work on all of them in the coming time. We will definitely go to other Northeast states. We have received a very good response, a very good support,” Ranka said.The CJP leaders were detained on Sunday shortly before the organisation’s first regional volunteers’ meeting in Guwahati was scheduled to begin near the Assam Secretariat.The organisation said several senior leaders and Assam-based volunteers, including Ranka, Ankit Bhardwaj and Prem Aakash, were taken to a police facility. Reports said around 30 CJP workers were detained.The CJP had described the gathering as a peaceful meeting on private property. Assam Police has not publicly provided a detailed explanation for the detentions, according to the information available.
CJP to begin nationwide protest from Oct 2
Ranka also said that CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke had initially planned to travel to Assam following the detentions but would now focus on preparations for the organisation’s proposed October 2 protest over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and its demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.“Abhijit’s plan was based on our arrest yesterday. But as I’ve been released, Abhijit is not coming. He is busy preparing for the protest planned for October 2nd regarding SIR and Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation,” Ranka told reporters.On the demand for Kumar’s resignation, Ranka said the organisation would launch a nationwide protest from October 2.“It will happen now. For 48 hours, the ball was in Gyanesh Kumar’s court. Now the ball is in CJP’s court. We’ll start our nationwide protest from 2nd October, and we won’t back down until Ganeshkumar resigns,” he added.Ranka also alleged that more than 13 crore people had been removed from electoral rolls and questioned the process of electoral boundary redrawing in Assam. These claims were made by Ranka and CJP and have not been independently established.
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The remarks come amid a wider political dispute over the functioning of the Election Commission and the SIR exercise. An Indian Express report cited by CJP said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on multiple occasions over SIR-related decisions.The Election Commission has rejected allegations of internal disagreement and maintained that decisions concerning SIR were taken with the “unanimous approval of the Commission.” The detentions came after the leadership of Akhil Gogoi-led Raijor Dal met CJP leaders, including Ranka, in Guwahati.
