CJP leaders and workers entered Delhi’s Jantar Mantar by scaling a gate and bypassing barricades on Tuesday, hours after the protest site was removed from the official list of approved demonstration venues, according to Live Hindustan – NCR. Delhi Police detained the group shortly after they entered the premises.
Those detained reportedly included CJP co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, along with organisation office-bearer Ajinkya Shinde and other workers. The group had not publicly announced its plan to enter Jantar Mantar in advance, according to the report.
The incident followed a Delhi Police order that removed Jantar Mantar from the list of official protest locations and notified three new venues, including Ramlila Maidan. The order became public on Monday. CJP had opposed the decision and said it did not accept the change.
A video shared on social media by CJP national coordinator Abhijit Dipke showed members of the group climbing over a gate and entering the site while carrying the national flag. The workers raised slogans before security personnel took them into custody, the report said.
Dipke, who was travelling to Maharashtra following a death in his family, said in a social media post that the group had entered Jantar Mantar before Delhi Police detained its members. He identified Das, Ranka and Shinde among those taken into custody and described the action as an attempt to prevent protest at the site.
Das later claimed in a post that the group had “taken back” Jantar Mantar and said its members had entered the premises despite being detained. Ranka described the action as breaching the site and clarified, in response to a journalist’s post, that the group had not merely been travelling there but had entered the premises.
The reported detention comes after an earlier attempt by Das and Ranka to travel to Jantar Mantar on October 10. They were detained on a flight after announcing that they intended to visit the protest site, according to the report.
Jantar Mantar has for years been associated with organised public demonstrations in the national capital. Its removal from the official protest-site list has now created a direct dispute between the revised administrative arrangement and groups seeking to continue using the location. The latest incident has placed enforcement of the new venue order at the centre of that dispute.
The report did not provide details of the sections under which the workers were detained, how long they remained in custody or whether the Delhi Police order included additional conditions for demonstrations at the three newly notified venues.
