For the third time since July, Indian authorities have switched off mobile internet in a part of New Delhi to choke off a protest before it could gather momentum. This time the shutdown lasted 24 hours and covered a four-kilometre radius around the Janpath-Kartavya Path crossing, targeting demonstrators trying to reach the symbolic protest site of Jantar Mantar on Saturday, October 10. The order came from Manishi Chandra, Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police's Special Cell, and it was only one layer in a broader operation to stop the demonstration from happening at all.
A Protest Over the Voter Rolls
The movement behind the protest, the Cockroach Janta Party, is demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The anger stems from a revision of India's voter list that, according to Reuters, removed around 130 million names from the rolls; The Independent reported that the exercise had "flagged" a comparable number of entries for review. The Election Commission and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reject any suggestion of wrongdoing, and police had not granted permission for the gathering, a detail officials cited to justify their response.
That response went well beyond the internet blackout. Forty-five metro stations were shut, and trains scheduled to arrive at New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations were cancelled. Ride-hailing platforms Uber and Ola were reportedly asked to flag "suspicious" passengers heading toward Jantar Mantar, while food delivery services such as Zomato were said to have been monitored for unusually large orders in the area - an indication of how far surveillance has extended into everyday commercial platforms during moments of political tension.
Detentions of Organisers and Journalists
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke was detained along with two other leaders as they arrived from Mumbai. "I have come to be arrested, arrest me... I am not afraid of you guys," Dipke was heard telling officers, who insisted, "No, this is not an arrest," and asked him to "please cooperate." Before leaving for Delhi, Dipke had asked why "the prime minister so scared of the country's youth, the country's people."
At least twelve journalists covering the protest were detained despite showing valid press credentials, with some placed on buses and their phones confiscated. Newslaundry said three of its reporters were held and told "Koi media nahin hai" - there is no media. A Scroll journalist asked officers, "What's my offense? I was standing on the road." Police defended the detentions by saying "everybody claims to be a journalist these days," a line press bodies have seized on to question the legal basis for seizing phones and holding reporters who were reporting, not protesting. The digital journalists' association DIGIPUB said plainly: "Journalism is not a crime, and neither is protest."
A Pattern of Digital Suppression
This is not an isolated incident. On October 2, the Home Ministry cut mobile internet for 12 hours within 1.5 kilometres of Jantar Mantar during an earlier CJP demonstration. In July, the same area went dark during protests over the NEET exam leak, a shutdown that also disrupted digital payments and daily commerce. When demonstrators responded by adopting a Bluetooth-based messaging app that needs no internet connection, server, or phone number to function, authorities moved against the software itself, pressuring GitHub to remove its code and Apple to pull it from its India app store.
Internet shutdowns have become a recurring instrument of crowd control in India, often justified on public-order grounds but carrying consequences that extend far beyond the protest site: disrupted businesses, blocked emergency communication, and a chilling effect on independent reporting. The targeting of a peer-to-peer messaging tool marks an escalation, suggesting that when connectivity itself cannot be fully controlled, the technology enabling communication without it becomes the next target.