Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Sunday responded to a Delhi Police video showing him declining an offer to return home after being informed of his grandmother’s death, saying police had denied him access to his phone “even for a couple of minutes” to contact his cousin.
“I had requested to let me speak to my cousin who lives with my grandmother. Asked for my phone just for a couple of minutes so I could at least take out the number of my cousin,” he wrote in a post on X.
“Why didn’t Delhi Police let me use my phone? I had also asked for a call with a lawyer, which was again denied.”
“At 3:30 in the morning, Delhi Police asks me to call my father and inform him that tomorrow I’ll be going in jail for a long time. The same father who has just lost his mother. How much more trauma did you want to put my family through after we already lost my grandmother?”
“What was the purpose of trying to call my parents at f-ing 3:30 in the morning? You wanted to torment them?” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“What was the purpose of trying to call my parents at f-ing 3:30 in the morning? You wanted to torment them?” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Delhi Police releases video, says Dipke declined offer to return home
Dipke’s response came after Delhi Police on Sunday released a video showing him declining an offer to return home after being informed of his grandmother’s death.
Officials said that Dipke was offered all possible assistance, including help with flights and phone calls. He was asked multiple times if he wishes to speak to his parents but he denied the offer.
“As soon as the Delhi Police received information about the passing away of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) Founder Abhijeet Dipke's grandmother, officers approached him to convey this sad news and offered all possible assistance. They sensitively asked if he needed help with flights, phone calls, or anything else. They repeatedly asked if he wished to speak to his parents, but he declined,” DCP Neha Yadav said.
Deep Dive
Did Abhijeet Dipke decline Delhi Police’s offer to return home after his grandmother died?
Did Delhi Police offer Abhijeet Dipke a chance to speak to his parents?
Did Abhijeet Dipke later travel to his village after his grandmother’s death?
The video was released after Delhi Police earlier on Sunday clarified that the news of Dipke’s grandmother’s death had been “promptly conveyed to him with due sensitivity”.
“He was also informed of the scheduled funeral time and offered all possible assistance to facilitate his travel to his hometown on humanitarian grounds. However, he declined the offer,” the police said in a post on X.
However, addressing the media on Sunday, CJP co-convenors Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das doubled down on the earlier claim that Dipke, who was in detention at the time, had been denied permission by Delhi Police to speak to his cousin.
Ranka also accused the authorities of insensitivity in the manner in which Dipke was informed about his grandmother’s death.
Dipke released, flies back home
The CJP founder left for his village in Maharashtra on Sunday, hours after his release from detention. “Heading back to my village to be with my family during this moment of grief. Saurav and Ashu will address a press conference shortly in Delhi. The CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated. October 10 will go down as the beginning of the end of this dictatorship,” he wrote on X.
Dipke shared a photo of his grandmother on Instagram alongside the caption, "I am sorry." This post comes after Savitribai Dipke, his paternal grandmother, died at the family's ancestral home in Santuk Pimpri village in Maharashtra on Saturday.
Protests, detention continues on day 2
Delhi Police on Sunday continued to detain protesters around Connaught Place as groups returned to renew their demonstrations against chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, even as the Supreme Court ordered that peaceful, unarmed protesters cannot be detained except through the “procedure established by law”.
About 100 protesters were packed into two buses and removed from the area. At least four journalists were also detained briefly at RK Ashram before being released. Several empty buses for transporting detained people were also spotted, as the crowd increased in the area.