A Bhopal railway station detention prevented four Telangana volunteers of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) from reaching a protest at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, after Madhya Pradesh police allegedly removed them from a train and escorted them back towards Telangana, according to CJP representatives quoted by the Times of India.
The volunteers—Stanley Korani, Rajesh Korapaka, Rangasai Reddy and Venkatesh Goud—were travelling on the Telangana Super-Fast Express when they were allegedly taken off the train at about 10.30 pm on October 8. CJP members said the group was released after almost 24 hours and taken back to Bhopal station on Friday evening, accompanied by four policemen.
Korani, who spoke to the newspaper while returning from Bhopal, alleged that nearly 50 policemen entered the train, took the four volunteers away and confiscated their belongings, including mobile phones. He said they were taken to a guest house, questioned about their travel to New Delhi and their association with CJP, and later moved to two other guest houses.
According to Korani, the volunteers also underwent a medical check-up at a government hospital in Bhopal. He said the police did not explain the reason for the detention or allow them to continue their journey after learning that they were travelling to the protest. By the time they were returned to Bhopal station at around 9 pm on Friday, they could no longer attend the Jantar Mantar programme.
The CJP volunteers said the four policemen accompanying them would travel with them to Warangal, from where they planned to take a bus to Hyderabad. The report did not include a response from Madhya Pradesh Police to the allegations.
CJP members also said they were trying to establish the whereabouts of three Andhra Pradesh volunteers allegedly detained at Gwalior railway station at about 4 am on Friday. Baba Fakhruddin, B Venkatesh and Renjith Rajeev were reportedly travelling to New Delhi on the Sampark Kranti Express. The organisation said local lawyers who approached Gwalior Police were not given an update.
Sreeja Reddy, CJP’s south zone coordinator, said the group believed the detentions were connected to the planned protest against the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR. She also alleged that some volunteers had received suspicious calls in recent weeks and that unidentified people had attended a closed-door CJP meeting in Hyderabad on September 26 while claiming to be intelligence officials.
CJP representatives said they would hold a protest in Hyderabad on Saturday over both SIR and the alleged detentions. Another protest was planned in Warangal on Sunday. The organisation described the reported action as an attempt to prevent peaceful political mobilisation, while the supplied report did not establish whether police had issued any formal order or restriction concerning the volunteers’ travel or the Delhi protest.
