Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 17: The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder president Abhijeet Dipke was granted a conditional bail by a Delhi court and was released on Saturday afternoon while the All India Students Association (AISA) Neha Bora was released by the police early Saturday morning after nearly 24 hours in the police custody.
Dipke was produced before Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) Court and was released on signing a “peace bond” with the condition that he would not take any step for one year that could disrupt peace. The bail is secured by a surety bond of Rs 50,000.
Dipke was detained moments after he stepped out of his house in Delhi’s Jhandewalan area to participate in the CJP’s “Lehra Do Tiranga” protest at Connaught Place on Friday. He was arrested on Saturday morning for allegedly violating a peace bond furnished by him on October 10. Neha Bora was detained when she led a march to Jantar Mantar on Friday in response to call for waving national flag and to protest against denotifying the iconic site as the protest zone.
The development comes after Ratna Singh, head of legal affairs for the CJP, on Saturday challenged the legality of Dipke’s arrest and urged the court to order his immediate release, alleging gross violations of fundamental rights and due process.
Dipke came out of the Mandir Marg police station soon after the hearing before a magistrate. In his first reaction after that, on X, Dipke shared a photo of Shah Rukh Khan’s character in tears in the movie ‘Veer-Zara’ (2004) upon being released after 22 years in a Pakistani jail. He captioned it: “How it feels walking out of jail after 24 hours with no wifi and phone.” Separately, CJP leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das are still in judicial custody for trespass at Jantar Mantar as the site was denotified as a protest venue last week.
Police said Neha Bora and Abhijeet Dipke were taken into preventive custody ahead of the ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ protest march at Connaught Place, where the plan was to wave the Tricolour on Friday evening. Smaller marches were held nonetheless by students and others carrying the flag.
Several groups of protesters and activists holding national flags converged near the Central Park in Connaught Place for the ‘ Lehra Do Tiranga’ (wave the tricolour) march on Friday. The crowd swelled through the evening as more protesters, activists, and student groups joined the march with national flags. Various farmers’ organisations, under the banner of Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) have decided to march to Delhi on October 23 demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Neha Bora was released after completing formalities related to her detention under the Delhi Police Act, while Abhijeet Dipke was formally arrested in a fresh case for breach of peace under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, police said.
Earlier, when Dipke was detained from inside a flight at Delhi airport on October 10, a separate case for breach of peace had been registered. He was made to sign a bond undertaking not to disturb peace for one year.
Meanwhile, Neha Bora, after being released, slammed the Delhi Police and the BJP government at the Centre, calling the detentions illegal. She also demanded an end to the controversial Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls, and called for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and for him to be jailed.
“I was detained at Mandi House and kept here (at the police station) the whole night, until 5 am. Why are you (police) carrying out these illegal detentions? These things have been happening in this country for a long time, and this protest movement has clearly shown that such detentions are taking place. It has brought these kinds of detentions to light. They claim that they adhere to law and order and go by the book, but none of that is happening,” Bora said. The AISA president also demanded that all of the protesters who have been detained or arrested, including Dipke, be released immediately.
The EC has been saying all decisions were already okayed by the Supreme Court, while the BJP is calling the current wave of protests — by the Opposition, the CJP, and student organisations — “foreign-funded” and “attempts at spreading anarchy.”
According to police, around 150 people had been detained to maintain law and order and ensure smooth traffic movement on Friday. Security personnel cordoned off Central Park in Connaught Place, with Rapid Action Force personnel deployed inside and additional forces stationed in the area.