Friday's detention is the second in a week for Dipke, whom police pulled off a flight at New Delhi's airport on October 10 ahead of an earlier rally before a court ordered his release the next day. After being freed on Sunday, Dipke vowed to continue the demonstrations and called Prime Minister Narendra Modi "the biggest coward this country has ever seen." On Wednesday, a New Delhi court ordered two other leaders of the group held in judicial custody for five days after they scaled barricades at the Jantar Mantar protest site, which authorities had stripped of its authorized status.
The protests center on a nationwide verification exercise that removed more than 130 million names from draft electoral rolls, roughly equal to the population of Mexico. Opposition parties, which have challenged the overhaul in the Supreme Court, join youth activists in alleging that the deletions disenfranchise eligible and minority voters to benefit Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, while the Election Commission and the BJP say the process only removes deceased, duplicate and relocated voters.