India cracks down on protesters demanding resignation of poll chief

Indian police have detained Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) movement leader Abhijeet Dipke and several other student leaders ahead of a protest against the election commissioner in New Delhi, local media reported.

"We are placing you under preventive detention," a police official was heard telling Dipke, according to a live NDTV news broadcast on Friday.

Earlier, police warned the founder of India's 'Cockroach' movement and several students against going ahead with a protest, local media reported.

On October 10, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged India to immediately release people "arbitrarily detained" in protests.

The youth-led 'Cockroach Janta Party' (CJP), opposition groups, and student organisations have held near-daily protests this month demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation over a voter-list revision that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

More than 130 million voters, mostly Muslims, were deleted during the revision, but the Election Commission has denied favouring any party.

Dipke called Friday's protest in support of two CJP leaders detained and sent to jail this week for five days for demonstrating at a protest site.

The group and other student organisations have urged supporters to gather at the Central Park in New Delhi's busy Connaught Place shopping and food district to wave and hoist the national flag.

Dipke said police visited him and served a notice saying the group was engaging in "unlawful activities and inciting people".

"Don't we even have the freedom to hoist our own tricolour in our own nation?" he said in a statement.

The notice said that prohibitory orders were in effect in Connaught Place and no permission had been given for a rally, news agency ANI reported, citing police sources.

The notice also said that legal action would be taken if Dipke went to the location, ANI said.

Security was stepped up in the city, and police urged people not to join "such assemblies", saying it can instead facilitate a group of select people to carry the national flag and sing the national anthem at a "suitable place".

The civic authority said the park itself would be closed for two days "due to administrative reasons".

The cockroach movement has emerged as one of the biggest political challenges faced by Modi and his BJP in his 12 years in power.

A weeks-long sit-in by its supporters earlier this year forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over exam paper leaks.

The latest demonstrations erupted after The Indian Express newspaper reported that Kumar's two deputies raised concerns internally about voter list changes, registration procedures and digital systems.