India's 'Cockroach' movement leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das are jailed for five days after scaling protest barricades in New Delhi

Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, co-conveners of India's youth-led Cockroach Janata Party, have been sentenced to five days in Tihar prison after climbing over police barricades at Jantar Mantar, a historic New Delhi protest site that authorities closed after more than 30 years as the capital's designated demonstration ground. The jailing follows a mass crackdown over the weekend in which police briefly detained thousands of young protesters demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Critics accuse Kumar of overseeing the removal of more than 130 million names from India's voter rolls since last year, which they say is politically motivated disenfranchisement.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi condemned the arrests on X as 'an act of cowardice', vowing that Jantar Mantar 'belongs to the people of India.'