GUWAHATI
Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader Ashutosh Ranka on Sunday (September 27, 2026) evening said the “illegal detention” of him and other volunteers by the Assam Police has “finally ended”.
He made the remarks in a post on X after being released along with the other detainees.
“The illegal detention by Assam Police has finally ended. We have asked Police to go and drop us from where we were picked up illegally in the first place,” Mr. Ranka said. The CJP leader added that he will share further details on the detention at the Chowdhury Tilla, situated opposite the state secretariat in Dispur area, from where they were picked up.
The Assam Police on Sunday (September 27, 2026) detained Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) co-convenor and chief spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka and several others from a private residence in Guwahati.
According to NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande, the others included 35 local volunteers and Mr. Ranka’s associates, Ankit Bharadwaj and Prem Aakash.
“Six of those detained along with Ashutosh Ranka are women. They were taken to the [Dispur] police station from a private residence, where a meet-up of CJP volunteers was scheduled,” Mr. Gawande told journalists.
The CJP leaders and volunteers were not served with any legal notice, and they were also not told which sections of the law they had been detained under, he said.
जब जब हिमंता डरता है, पुलिस को आगे करता है। pic.twitter.com/eYYOV1lG0N— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) September 27, 2026
जब जब हिमंता डरता है, पुलिस को आगे करता है। pic.twitter.com/eYYOV1lG0N
“This is nothing short of jungle raj under Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is afraid of any and all kind of dissent,” Mr. Gawande said.
The 35 CJP members currently in police custody have begun an indefinite hunger strike in protest against their detention. They include Mr. Ranka, east and northeast in-charge Mr. Bhardwaj, joint secretary Premakash Golu, and Assam coordinator Sahil.
The hunger strike will continue until all 35 members are released from custody, the CJP said in a statement.
All the CJP wanted to talk about was fixing the pathetic condition of schools in Assam, which do not have fans, classrooms, and teachers, he said. “We wanted to talk about the way people have been evicted from Kaziranga, their lands taken, and activists arrested. We wanted to talk about the illegal redrawing of the election (constituency) boundaries in Assam,” he said.
The CJP alleged that there had been a pattern in Assam “happening for too long”.
“You have seen what happened with land rights activist Pranab Doley, who was arrested and then detained under the National Security Act. You have seen how the government intimidates civil society activists in Assam,” Mr. Gawande said.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Ranka asked why the Chief Minister was afraid of being exposed.
“The Chief Minister is scared that if we show the schools here, the country will know the reality. He is afraid that people will know how their rights were being snatched in Kaziranga for the benefit of the corporates. But we are not afraid of him. We know that he won the Assembly election by redrawing boundaries of constituencies,” Mr. Ranka said as the police whisked him away.
The Chief Minister evaded questions on why the CJP members had been detained, but said he welcomed any suggestions to improve the State’s health and education sectors.
“I will give the highest priority to such suggestions, either from the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), or Congress, or CPI(M) (Communist Party of India-Marxist), or CJP,” he said.
The police did not say why the CJP members, who included a 72-year-old woman, had been detained, some of whom were taken to the 10th Assam Police Battalion in Guwahati.
The detention invited criticism from CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and Opposition leaders. Jorhat MP and State Congress president Gaurav Gogoi condemned the “completely unacceptable and illegal” police action and sought to know why the BJP was “scared” of the youth. “Is it because the youth have rejected the Hindu-Muslim polarisation of the BJP?” he asked.
