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Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke released on conditional bail

A Delhi court ordered the 31-year-old released a day after his detention, with a condition that he keep the peace for a year. Two other party leaders remain in custody.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 17 Oct 2026, 22:54

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of India's Cockroach Janta Party, after he was released on conditional bail in New Delhi on 17 October 2026. Photograph by Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times. Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times

A Delhi court on Saturday ordered the release of Abhijeet Dipke, founder of India's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a day after police detained and then arrested him as he set out for a protest march in the capital.

Dipke was produced before a Special Executive Magistrate at Mandir Marg and released on a conditional bail bond. One of the main conditions is that he must not disturb the peace for a year, and he left the police station on Saturday afternoon after signing the bond, the reports said. He was required to furnish a bond of Rs 50,000.

He was detained on Friday evening as he left a house in Delhi's Jhandewalan area to join the CJP's "Lehra Do Tiranga" (Wave the Tricolour) march at Connaught Place. Police had served him a notice barring the march and cited prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. He was arrested in a fresh breach-of-peace case under Sections 126 and 170 of the same law, police said. It was the second time in a week that Dipke was detained; he was picked up at Delhi airport on 10 October and released the next day.

Student activist Neha Bora, a prominent face of the protests and national president of the All India Students' Association, was also detained on Friday and released on Saturday. Two other senior CJP leaders, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, were sent to five days' judicial custody after entering the Jantar Mantar protest site, which police have declared off-limits, and remain in custody.

The youth-led CJP, opposition parties and student groups have held near-daily protests this month demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of voter lists that they say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

More than 130 million voters were deleted during the revision, according to the reports. The Election Commission has denied favouring any party and said wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol, while the BJP has accused rivals of trying to undermine democracy by questioning legitimate electoral processes.

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Election Commission to publish final voter list on 25 November

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A briefing in the auditorium of the Bangladesh Election Commission building at Agargaon in Dhaka in 2018. File photo. Press Information Department, Government of Bangladesh

The Election Commission will publish the updated final voter list on 25 November, after pushing back its earlier plan because the Union Parishad elections were rescheduled, officials said.

Under the schedule sent to field offices on Saturday, the draft voter list will be published on 5 November. Voters who want to change their area can apply until 31 October, and those applications will be settled by 5 November.

Claims and objections to the draft list can be filed until 20 November and must be decided by 23 November, with the decisions added to the list on 24 November, a day before the final publication.

People born on or before 31 October 2008 will be able to register as new voters, according to the notices. The first phase of the Union Parishad polls is due on 21 January, with voting in five phases; the schedule for the first phase may be announced in December.

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Prime Minister Tarique Rahman to make three-day state visit to Japan on 26 October

His political adviser, Zahir Uddin Swapan, told a visiting Japanese delegation in Dhaka that the trip would take Bangladesh-Japan relations to a new high.

ScrollBeat Desk18 Oct 2026, 00:13Open this article

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman at a session of the 13th National Parliament in Dhaka on 10 April 2026. File photo. Press Information Department, Government of Bangladesh

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will make a three-day state visit to Japan from 26 October, his political adviser said on Saturday, as a visiting Japanese business delegation held talks in Dhaka on trade and investment.

Zahir Uddin Swapan, the prime minister's political adviser, who holds the rank of a minister, said the trip would take relations between the two countries to a new high. He spoke during a courtesy meeting with the delegation at the prime minister's Tejgaon office in Dhaka.

The delegation is in Bangladesh to discuss the potential for trade and commerce between the two countries ahead of the visit. Its members have been meeting government and private-sector representatives on matters of mutual interest, and Saturday's courtesy call was part of that schedule.

The announcement was reported by Prothom Alo, Bangla Tribune and Jugantor.