Guwahati Police detained senior leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party, including co-convenor and spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka, on Sunday, just ahead of the group’s scheduled meeting with volunteers taking place.
According to the report, police had blocked the meeting venue on a hilltop in Guwahati since the morning and stopped volunteers from reaching the site. The CJP had planned to bring together around 200 to 300 volunteers from across Assam for the gathering. As he was being taken away in a police bus, one CJP leader said they had been stopped from holding a peaceful meeting and were being removed from the venue against their wishes.
Speaking to reporters while being detained, Ranka said Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was afraid that the party’s work would draw national attention to the real condition of schools in the state. He alleged that the chief minister was worried about exposing how people in the Kaziranga area were losing their rights over land, forests and water, which he claimed were being taken away and given to corporate interests. Ranka further alleged that man-made floods engineered by the state had cost people their lives, but said the party would not be intimidated.
Another CJP member, Ankit Bhardwaj, told the Times of India that the organisation’s senior leadership, including Ranka and fellow leader Prem Aakash, along with other Assam-based volunteers, had all been detained and taken to a police facility in Guwahati.
CJP national convenor Abhijeet Dipke alleged separately that police were not allowing lawyers to meet the detained leaders. He said lawyers were standing outside the location where Ranka and others were being held but were being denied entry. In an earlier post, Dipke had also claimed that police were moving Ranka and the other detained members to an undisclosed location, without informing them where they were being taken.
As of the report, there was no official statement from Assam Police confirming the reasons for the detentions or the current whereabouts of those held.
