Two leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were sent to five days of judicial custody on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, in a trespassing case connected to Jantar Mantar, The Hindu reports. A Special Executive Magistrate issued the order hours after the two were placed under preventive arrest. They will be held in Tihar Jail.
A third CJP figure, Ajinkya Shinde, was also taken into preventive custody but was released on a personal bond, according to India Today.
The case follows the Delhi Police's decision to strip Jantar Mantar of its status as a designated protest venue. The de-notification took effect on Monday, October 12, 2026, under a standing order issued by Commissioner Anurag Kumar. Demonstrations in the capital have been redirected to three alternative sites: Ramlila Ground, CBD Ground in East Delhi, and Burari Ground in North Delhi.
An FIR against Das and Ranka lists breach of bond, criminal trespass and disobedience of orders, among other charges, The Hindu reports.
Why it matters
Jantar Mantar has served for decades as the default stage for public demonstrations in New Delhi, and its removal from the list of approved protest venues changes where dissent can legally be staged in the capital. The custody order against two CJP leaders turns that administrative shift into a live political confrontation, drawing in opposition parties, student groups and the central government.
The timing also matters. The arrests came during a protest movement pressing for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, according to the All India Students' Association (AISA).
Opposition leaders respond
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi backed the jailed CJP leaders, in what NDTV described as the first show of support for them. Gandhi said the Congress holds the Chief Justice of India, the Supreme Court and the judicial system in the highest regard, while maintaining that political and public resistance would continue and prevail.
He argued that waving the national flag at Jantar Mantar during a peaceful protest is not an offence, and called the jailing of young people for it an act of cowardice. Students, young people, journalists and the INDIA bloc, he said, stand under different banners but behind one cause — the demand for constitutional rights. "Jantar Mantar belongs to the people of India. We will reclaim it," The Times of India quotes him as saying.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah pushed back. He said a party cannot claim to speak for the nation simply by assembling cadres from fourteen parties to gather a crowd of eight thousand within a stretch of a kilometre and a half. He urged the Congress to recognise that the country's voice also lives in its fields and farms, its villages, remote hills, forests and riverbanks — places, he said, where the party has no reach.
CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya framed the CJP leaders' entry into Jantar Mantar as a deliberate symbolic protest against the Home Ministry's de-notification order. He said Das, Ranka and Shinde entered the site the previous day, were detained, and were then remanded to five days of judicial custody on charges of criminal trespass and disobedience of an order.
Bhattacharya said Jantar Mantar is recognised worldwide as Delhi's most familiar protest ground and belongs to the people. He accused what he called the "Mo-Sha regime" of fearing protests, showing contempt for the Constitution, and still reacting to the defeats it suffered during the Jantar Mantar mobilisations of June and July. He called the punishment absurd and said India would not accept such an arbitrary order.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was imposing an unofficial emergency following the custody order, according to The Economic Times.
Shinde, speaking after his release, said he and the others had gone to Jantar Mantar with CJP volunteers, waved the Indian national flag and raised the slogan "Bharat Mata Ki Jai." He said the government had jailed Das and Ranka for five days over that act.
Student body condemns arrests
AISA issued a press release on Wednesday condemning the arrests, calling them a dangerous precedent. The group alleged that the Delhi Police was cracking down on protesters who want the Chief Election Commissioner to step down and the SIR of electoral rolls abandoned.
AISA also criticised the de-notification of Jantar Mantar, alleged police brutality against women protesters, and demanded the immediate release of Das and Ranka. It accused the Delhi Police, acting on what it described as directions from Amit Shah, of using the arrests to fracture a movement that has brought together students, civil society and opposition parties.
The new protest sites, and their limits
The three replacement venues come with practical constraints. Ramlila Maidan, a 12-acre ground with capacity for 50,000 people, has no free dates for the next two and a half months, officials said. Only December 29, 30 and 31 remain open for booking.
Cost is another factor. Officials put the daily booking rate at ₹50,000, plus a refundable security deposit of ₹55,000. With taxes, a single day's booking comes to about ₹1.21 lakh.
For groups that relied on Jantar Mantar's central location and open access, the combination of scarce dates and higher costs at the designated alternatives represents a significant change in how public demonstrations can be organised in the capital.
What happens next: Das and Ranka are due to remain in Tihar Jail for five days, while attention turns to whether the de-notification of Jantar Mantar is challenged and whether the protest movement widens beyond the CJP.
