But the authorities closed the park that the group had chosen for the march
A new protest is expected today in the center of New Delhi, where the satirical-political movement “People’s Cockroach Party” has announced a march in Connaught Place’s Central Park for the afternoon.
However, the New Delhi Municipal Council ordered the closure of the park for two days and the PTI news agency reports that thousands of officers “were mobilized in the New Delhi area in view” of the protest, called “Lehra Do Tiranga”, i.e. “Wave the tricolour”.
The demonstration was announced by the “Cockroach Party” after the five-day arrest inflicted on two of its leaders on charges of having reached the Jantar Mantar area together with other activists for a protest during which they apparently waved the Indian tricolor before being stopped by the police. Jantar Mantar has been a place for demonstrations for over 30 years, but Indian authorities on Monday said they wanted to revoke this status from the area of the ancient astronomical observatory and propose three other possible areas for demonstrations: a decision contested by the opposition.
Jantar Mantar is also the place where the “Cockroach Party” – which gathers support especially among the young people of generation Z – wanted to hold a demonstration last Saturday against the alleged irregularities in the revision of the electoral lists of which the opposition accuses the government, but the area was cordoned off and several demonstrators were stopped by the police: “thousands”, according to the Indian media, in an armored New Delhi and with the internet connection cut off in a large area.
The action of the Indian authorities was criticized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which defined the detentions as “arbitrary”.
