Crackdown on Cockroach Janta Party, access to all accounts lost, says founder Abhijeet Dipke

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one. Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary. The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. Updated - May 23, 2026 03:24 pm IST - New Delhi Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke. Source/X Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Saturday (May 23, 2026) alleged a crackdown on the satirical digital outfit, saying it does not have access to any of its social media accounts following a series of takedowns and hacking incidents. In a post on X, he claimed his personal Instagram account has also been hacked. This comes a day two days after the CJP's account on X was withheld in India and Dipke created a new one. The outfit on Friday launched a campaign seeking Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over alleged systemic failures in the education sector and the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak. Later in the day, Mr. Dipke claimed that he was receiving death threats and shared screenshots of the threat messages. In a post on X on Saturday, Mr. Dipke listed what he described as coordinated action against the movement. "Crackdown on Cockroach Janta Party. Instagram page hacked. My personal Instagram hacked. Twitter account withheld. Back up account also taken down," he said. "Please note that we currently do not have access to any of our platforms. Any post made after this should not be considered an official statement from the Cockroach Janta Party," he said. The CJP website — cockroachjantaparty.org — has also been taken down, and is no longer accessible. Mr. Dipke linked the action against the platform to its campaign against Mr. Pradhan. "Action should have been taken against the Education Minister for the paper leak. For the student who lost his life due to the government's failure. But in New India, action is being taken against the Cockroach Janta Party for demanding accountability," he said. In a post shared by its backup handle, 'Cockroach is Back', on X, the CJP said it had reached the milestone of "one million registered Cockroaches" on its website in less than a week. "The movement keeps getting bigger despite all the crackdown!" it said. At 8.25 a.m., another post by the handle said the CJP's official Instagram account had been hacked and access to it had been lost. At 6.50 a.m., the CJP issued a message distancing itself from any protest call. "The Cockroach Janta Party has not given any such call. The government is just waiting for one mishap to demonise the entire movement. We request all cockroaches to remain peaceful and careful," the post said. The backup account, 'Cockroach is Back', had over 2,02,000 followers at the time of filing this report. Its Instagram account had over 21.9 million followers. Mr. Dipke had earlier told PTI that attempts had been made to hack the CJP's account and that legal options were being considered. The CJP emerged last week amid a controversy surrounding remarks attributed to the Chief Justice of India during a court hearing and rapidly gained traction online through memes and political commentary around issues such as unemployment, examination paper leaks and education. The withholding of its X handle in India has drawn criticism from digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation, which termed the action a misuse of state power. Copyright© 2026, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

Crackdown on Cockroach Janta Party, access to all accounts lost, says founder Abhijeet Dipke

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Crackdown on Cockroach Janta Party, access to all accounts lost, says founder Abhijeet Dipke

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