Indian police said they have detained more than 2,000 people during anti-government protests in New Delhi, while also imposing sweeping security measures and restrictions in the country\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
According to media reports, the demonstrations were planned around calls for the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, head of India\u2019s election commission, prompting the city to move into what was effectively a shutdown under tight security control.<\/p>\n
According to published details, security forces temporarily suspended mobile internet services to prevent a large gathering in the Jantar Mantar area, shut down dozens of metro stations and several markets, and deployed thousands of security personnel across different parts of the city. It was also reported that among those detained was the founder of the Cockroach youth movement.<\/p>\n
Local media said about 400 more people were detained in Mumbai. It was also reported that Abhijit Debaki, Sourav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, leaders of a party, were detained after arriving at the airport, and that a number of opposition figures and former state officials were among those arrested. Several journalists, including a Reuters reporter, were also briefly detained.<\/p>\n
The main focus of the protests is a dispute over revisions to voter lists, a move that protesters say has involved removing about 130 million names from the rolls. Critics say it is an attempt to influence state election results and tilt the vote in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n
In response, the Cockroach Janata movement called the detention of its leaders “arbitrary” and said it would continue the protests until the election commission chief resigns. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party, the opposition, also said opponents of Modi would not back down.<\/p>\n
On the other side, the ruling party and the election commission have denied any wrongdoing. The election commission said the removal of names relates to the initial verification and updating of voter lists and includes cases such as deceased people or those who have changed their place of residence.<\/p>\n
Internationally, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed concern over the mass arrests. Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesman for the agency, urged Indian authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly and engage in constructive dialogue with opponents.<\/p>\n
In response, India\u2019s mission to the UN in Geneva described the concerns as “unfounded” and “an unjustified interference in internal affairs,” stressing that India\u2019s constitution guarantees the right to peaceful assembly, subject to “reasonable restrictions” to preserve public order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Indian police detained over 2,000 protesters in New Delhi as anti-government rallies over voter list revisions escalated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}