A heavy police crackdown and security deployment in the national capital in light of the Cockroach Janata Party’s (CJP) scheduled protest at Jantar Mantar have drawn flak from several figures in the film industry. The protest against the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was called by the CJP to demand Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar ‘s resignation over alleged irregularities in the revised voter roll.
Meanwhile, director Anurag Kashyap took to his Instagram account on Saturday and wrote, “Do Darpok, 40,000 ghulam, Lakhon bahadur (2 of them scared, 40,000 of them slaves, and lakhs of bravehearts). Editor and filmmaker Apurva Asrani noted the detention of Abhijeet Dipke, Ratna Singh and Dhruv Rathee on October 10 and wrote, “Tell me this is not dictatorship. 23 battalions have been called for the crackdown.
Actor and activist Prakash Raj took to his X account and shared a cartoon by Satish Acharya. He wrote in the caption, “How long will you escape from Citizens dissent #justasking. He also made a video addressing the detentions and shared on X, where he called out the detention of Abhijeet, Saurav and Ashutosh from the flight. “What is this hungama? Detaining youngsters from the flights and homes? Not even letting them reaching the protest site? You have not arrested our voice! You have arrested yourself. This country will not let you kill democracy, it is a long fight and we will continue to ask questions… Game on! The nation is watching. A day ago, the actor took to his X account to share a video addressing the reports of train cancellations and heavy police protocol. He recalled a dialogue from his hit film Singham, where he played the antagonist Jaykant Shikre and made a video to address the public. Singer Vishal Dadlani also fumed at the crackdown and shared a video on Instagram. They are going against its own people, their right to protest in this country. The entire city is on a standstill, with cancellations of trains and metros. Only to save one person! So think for yourself what this person must have done for this system and how the system has been broken down to save him. Filmmaker Shirish Kunder tweeted, “How long can you survive if you have to use force to protect yourself from your own people? Filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane shared several posts on Instagram Stories condemning the detention of protesters in Delhi. Actor Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub shared a Hindi translation of the poem by German theatre practitioner and playwright Bertolt Brecht on his X account in solidarity with the protesters.
“The end of democracy,” he wrote in the caption. He said, “At present, the whole world is watching that the system can go to such lengths to save one person.
