The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) co-convenor Saurav Das called on people from across India to again protest in a peaceful manner. 

“This demonstration is still on,” Das said as he spoke about reported protester detentions taking place for a second day of the protest demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. 

“We are not going to move back, we appeal to all Indian citizens that you will have to fight. You will have to come out on the streets. Wherever you are, you will have to do a peaceful demonstration,” he told a press conference.

“This system cannot go on like this. This system is broken. This system is corrupt… and this system only works in the service of two people,” Das said, going on to name Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. 

Das spoke to reporters hours after he was released from detention along with co-leaders Abhijeet Dipke and Ashutosh Ranka.

Ranka and CJP legal head Ratna Singh were also present at the press conference. 

Ranka said peaceful protesters who wanted to demonstrate at a designated protest site were picked up.

“The fight has just begun…Modi and Shah should feel ashamed for treating this fight like a war,” Das said. 

Das accused the police of ‘arriving like mafia dons’ and ‘abducting’ them on Saturday when they were detained from a plane upon landing in New Delhi.

He alleged they were not allowed to meet their lawyers while in detention.

New protest arrests reported in Delhi

Meanwhile, more detentions are being reported in New Delhi. 

Several protesters were seen marching towards the protest site in Jantar Mantar in images circulating on Indian media. 

News agency ANI reported that some people were detained at the inner circle of Connaught Place, close to Jantar Mantar, where student and youth organisations of opposition parties were protesting. 

The CJP) shared a series of videos on X, alleging fresh detentions.

“Detain us, arrest us, do whatever you can! We will not be intimidated. This is just the beginning. We will continue fighting until all our demands are met,” the CJP’s Ajinkya Shinde said on X.

India slams UN body’s statement

India on Sunday rejected remarks by the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that called on Indian authorities to immediately release ‘arbitrarily detained’ people during Saturday’s protest. 

“We are concerned by reports of mass detentions in India of demonstrators, protest leaders, members of civil society organisations, lawyers and journalists, before and during today’s large-scale demonstrations in Delhi,” the OHCHR said in a statement on Saturday. 

“All those arbitrarily detained must be immediately and unconditionally released.”

India’s Foreign Ministry called the UN office’s concerns ‘unwarranted’ and said that they ‘constitute an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs’ of the country. 

“India is the world’s largest democracy, where the right to peaceful assembly is guaranteed by our Constitution and safeguarded by robust institutions, an independent judiciary and a free media,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

“As in every democracy, Indian citizens exercise this right subject to the maintenance of public order and safety. Our law enforcement authorities act strictly in accordance with the law, and our courts remain available to all for the redressal of any grievances.”

The ministry went on to accuse the UN human rights agency of having an ‘approach of extreme selectivity’ on public positions.

The ministry said it had noted that ‘violent responses to protests’ in India’s neighbourhood have gone ‘uncommented, as indeed have law enforcement actions in its own vicinity’.

The statement accused the OHCHR of ‘double standards’ which it continued to say ‘only erode the credibility’ of the body and ‘contribute to the loss of faith in multilateralism’.

DW