Thousands of people were detained across New Delhi on Saturday as Indian authorities mounted a sweeping security operation to stop a protest by the youth-led “cockroach” movement demanding the resignation of the country’s election chief.

Police fanned out across India’s capital to block access to Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, stopping buses and cars at checkpoints, erecting barricades and deploying antiriot vehicles equipped with tear gas launchers along key routes.

Many demonstrators were intercepted long before they reached central New Delhi, chased away or dragged into police vehicles and taken to temporary detention centres. Several movement leaders, opposition lawmakers and student activists were detained en route, effectively halting the rally before it began.

Authorities said they had denied permission for the gathering because the request was submitted late and insisted the measures were necessary to maintain order. Sambit Patra, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, dismissed the protesters as “anarchic elements” staging a “flop show”.

Despite the clampdown, some protesters broke through police cordons, chanting slogans against Modi and the Election Commission of India (ECI), before being detained. “We are a democracy, yet peaceful protests are being crushed by force,” said college student Tanya Negi, who travelled from Mumbai. “Why is Modi afraid of India’s young people?”

The movement led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) emerged online in May and gained prominence through protests over exam paper leaks that led to the resignation of Modi’s education minister in July.

Its latest campaign targets the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which opposition parties say has already removed more than 130 million names from voter rolls and disenfranchised supporters.

The ECI and the government deny any political bias, but critics say the crackdown highlights shrinking space for dissent as key state polls approach.