New Delhi : Dramatic scenes played out at the Delhi airport as the Air India flight carrying Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka landed on Saturday ahead of the outfit’s Jantar Mantar protest. Delhi Police might have anticipated that deploying male officers could risk a confrontation. In an aircraft, the aisles are narrow, and there is little room to manoeuvre.
Barring a few heated exchanges, Dipke and the other CJP leaders were eventually detained without any major chaos. With the chaos of July 20 still fresh on their minds, Delhi Police’s women-first tactic proved to be a well-thought-out ploy. After the July 20 violence, which broke out as student protesters marched towards Parliament over exam paper leaks, the CJP accused male police officers of beating young women.
With the CJP’s support base largely consisting of youth and Gen Z, officials may have wanted to avoid the optics of male officers handling its leaders and chaos breaking out. Women officers could blunt that narrative. As soon as cops boarded the flight, Dipke started recording from his window seat. Das was seated in the middle seat. Next to him was Ranka. As they spotted the police personnel, the CJP leaders started chanting “Inquilab Zindabad” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai”.
“You can see where the nation is heading. They are here to arrest us directly from the flight. This is something not even Indira Gandhi had done. This is dictatorship,” Dipke is heard saying. “I have come here to be arrested; arrest me,” Dipke further tells the cops. All along, the women officers are seen urging Dipke and others to cooperate. Dipke, Das and Ranka were then taken to separate locations.
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