Abhijeet Dipke, the charismatic founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, was hauled out of his aircraft by a squad of Delhi Police officers mere minutes after the flight touched down at Indira Gandhi International Airport on Saturday. The raid took place just hours before the party’s planned demonstration at Jantar Mantar, aimed at challenging the decisions of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The police had earlier denied the party permission to protest on Friday, citing that the request was not lodged well in advance. The denial sparked a wave of arrests, with more than 400 suspected demonstrators seized overnight from across the capital.
Dipke streamed the whole incident live on Instagram, capturing the moment police opened the aircraft door, wrestled him into a holding cell, and left the flight in a flurry of chaos. He and fellow party members Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were detained on the plane, while the crew allegedly shouted, ‘You could have waited…’ as officers barred them from de‑boarding.
The Cockroach Janta Party condemned the move as an ‘authoritarian detention’ and demanded the immediate release of Dipke, Das and Ranka. In parallel, Delhi authorities shut 45 metro stations, canceled dozens of trains, and deployed more than 20,000 police and Central Armed Police Force personnel to maintain order.