NEW DELHI : India’s youth-led Cockroach Jan­ta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke was released from detention on Saturday, a day after his arrest during a police crackdown on protests against the election authority.

Dipke, 31, was detained on Friday in New Delhi as he headed to join a rally that the CJP protest movement had called in the capital’s central Connaught Place district.

He walked out of a police station Saturday afternoon waving to the media and giving a thumbs up as he was driven away, an AFP photographer saw.

“Abhijeet Dipke rele­ased,” CJP legal affairs chief Ratna Singh said on social media.

Opposition parties and CJP activists have defied a security crackdown, rallying to demand the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner after accusing the poll body of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

The commission, which oversees voting in the wor­ld’s most populous nation, has denied any wrongdoing.

Two other senior CJP leaders, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, were arrested on Oct 14 after entering Jantar Mantar, a decades-old protest site that police have declared off-limits for demonstrations. They remain in custody.

“Now just waiting for my brothers to be free”, Dipke said in a post on X that included a photo of Ranka and Das.

In a separate post on Instagram, Dipke said he “knew going to jail was inevitable” and that he was ready to face “whatever comes my way”.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2026