‘How can you stop these kids?’ Indian capital on lockdown before protests

New Delhi, India – Heavy police barricades line the streets around Connaught Place, the colonial-era square near Jantar Mantar, on Saturday morning as police have begun detaining groups of protesters arriving for planned demonstrations.They are here in support of the influential Gen-Z movement and Cockroach Janta Party, which have called for the resignation of India’s election chief, amid a bitter dispute over who gets to vote in the world’s most populous democracy.Protesters are demanding sweeping reforms and a rollback of a controversial voter revision exercise which has struck 130 million names from the voter list.For now, an eerie silence hangs over parts of central New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has gone to lengths to turn the city into a fortress, deploying nearly 30,000 personnel onto the streets.Police ⁠have also detained the founder of ⁠the Cockroach Janta Party, Abhijeet Dipke.Indian TV channels reported early on Saturday that officers met Dipke at New Delhi airport ⁠after he arrived ⁠from the financial capital Mumbai and asked him to call ⁠off the protest as authorities ⁠had banned it.CJP leaders ⁠Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were also detained fro...