Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Monday accused the Delhi Police of “mentally torturing him and his family” and challenged them to release an unedited video of the alleged ill-treatment, a day after the forces shared a clip to claim they had offered to provide him with all possible assistance following his grandmother’s death in Maharashtra’s Hingoli.
Dipke, who was held on Saturday hours ahead of the CJP’s protest against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, alleged the police pressured him to sign his arrest papers, warning him that he would remain in jail for a long time. He also claimed the police tried to force him to inform his parents about his preventive arrest, despite his repeated requests to meet his lawyer. “I repeatedly requested them to let me meet my cousin, return my phone and allow me to meet my lawyer. Why are they not releasing the entire video? They are showing an edited version. If they have the courage, they should release the full footage of the incident. How could they deny me my basic rights? He also claimed the police asked him to tell his parents that he would remain in jail for an extended period. “They wanted to cause further distress to my parents, who were already grieving my grandmother’s death. The Delhi Police were trying to mentally torture me and my family,” he alleged. He was in the Capital to participate in a planned CJP protest at Jantar Mantar when he was detained by Delhi Police from an aircraft at Indira Gandhi International Airport after arriving from Mumbai.
As a result, he could not attend her last rites on October 11. At a media interaction on Sunday, Deputy Commissioner of Police Neha Yadav shared a 1.45-minute video of officers informing Dipke about his grandmother’s death and offering to arrange travel for him to attend the last rites. On October 10, Dipke’s 85-year-old paternal grandmother, Savitribai Shankarrao Dipke, died following a prolonged illness.
Meeting a lawyer is a fundamental right,” he told reporters. He said he refused to comply, saying he did not even know where he was and had not been allowed to meet his lawyer.
