Former Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal was detained by Delhi Police during a protest on October 10 and released later the same night, according to a report by Live Hindustan – NCR. Kejriwal said he was taken to Jafarpur police station along with other AAP leaders before being released after several hours.
The report said Kejriwal was detained at around 3 pm while he was travelling towards Jantar Mantar. AAP leaders Gopal Rai, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Durgesh Pathak were also reported to have been detained during the protest-related action.
Kejriwal shared information about the detention through his X account and later posted a video recorded from inside the police station. In the video, he said the leaders had been at the station for around two-and-a-half hours and claimed that several hundred supporters had gathered outside. The report attributed these statements to Kejriwal and did not include a separate Delhi Police account of the detentions or the release.
Kejriwal also said the police station had begun to resemble Jantar Mantar, the central Delhi venue frequently used for political demonstrations. He alleged that the government would not be able to control growing public protests and called for action against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. These were political statements made by Kejriwal and are not independently established facts in the supplied report.
After his release, Kejriwal was shown emerging through the sunroof of a car as supporters gathered around him and raised slogans, according to the report. The account said he had earlier announced that he would attend a protest scheduled at Jantar Mantar with his family.
The incident places renewed attention on how Delhi authorities manage political demonstrations, the use of preventive detention during protests and the communication gap that can arise when police action is reported primarily through political leaders. The supplied report establishes that Kejriwal and other leaders were detained and later released, but it does not provide details of the legal grounds for the action, whether formal notices were issued or whether any case was registered.
The report also said leaders of another political organisation were detained while travelling by air to attend the protest. It identified the organisation’s convenor Abhijit Deepke, co-convenor Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka among those detained. No further details about their detention or release were provided.
The immediate next step is the clarification of the police action, including the grounds for the detentions and the official account of the leaders’ release.
