YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was detained by Delhi Police at his residence in Gurugram’s Sector 56 on Saturday ahead of the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) planned protest at Jantar Mantar, NDTV reported, citing police sources.
Rathee had arrived to join the demonstration, prompting heightened security arrangements across the national capital.
According to sources, around 50 Delhi Police personnel arrived at Rathee’s Gurugram residence on Saturday morning and detained him.
The detention drew a sharp response from the CJP, which demanded his “immediate release”.
On Friday evening, Rathee announced his participation in Saturday’s protest in a video posted on his X account.
A vocal critic of the Narendra Modi government, Rathee arrived in India from Germany earlier this week and joined a CJP protest in Bengaluru on October 8.
Rathee has a substantial online following, with 19.2 million Instagram followers, 3.3 million on X, and 33 million YouTube subscribers.
Earlier this week, Delhi Police denied permission for the protest, citing security concerns and procedural requirements.
Police have stepped up preventive detentions and deployed personnel at strategic locations to prevent protesters from reaching the protest site.
More than 400 people were detained overnight, while hundreds of trains were cancelled and dozens of metro stations shut ahead of a large-scale protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in central Delhi on Saturday.
The CJP mobilised supporters to gather at Jantar Mantar, while the Centre deployed more than 20,000 police and Central Armed Police Forces personnel to maintain law and order.
