GUWAHATI |  Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader Ashutosh Ranka has alleged that Assam Police illegally detained him and more than 40 party volunteers in Guwahati on September 27, claiming that officers told him they were acting on orders from “the top”.

Ranka and the other detainees were later released.

According to Ranka, the group had gathered at the residence of Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) leader Kunki Chowdhury at Chowdhury Tilla for a scheduled meeting when police took them into custody. They were subsequently taken to the 10th Assam Police Battalion headquarters in Kahilipara.

“The illegal detention by Assam Police has finally ended. We have asked Police to go and drop us from where we were picked up illegally in the first place,” Ranka said in a post on X. Speaking to reporters after his release, Ranka alleged that police failed to provide a reason for the detention.

“The Assam Police detained me and my team illegally. We asked them on what basis we were detained, but the police said they didn’t know, and that they had orders from the top,” he said. Ranka said the proposed meeting was intended to discuss the condition of schools in Assam, the rights of indigenous communities in Kaziranga and the delimitation of constituencies.

He alleged that the detention was aimed at preventing the CJP from raising these issues publicly. Ranka also criticised Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over the state’s education system, alleged encroachment on local rights in Kaziranga and what he described as “man-made floods”.

“He is scared that if we show the schools here, the country will know the reality. He is afraid that people will know how their rights were being snatched in Kaziranga for the benefit of corporates,” Ranka alleged.In another statement, Ranka said, “Himanta Biswa Sarma is afraid of the cockroaches and used his police to threaten us,” while asserting that the organisation would continue its political campaign across the Northeast.

He also referred to the CJP’s earlier protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and alleged that the Assam chief minister had repeated what he described as a similar action by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Meanwhile, NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande alleged that Ranka and 41 others were “illegally and unconstitutionally detained” from a private residence.

Gawande claimed that the detainees were neither served a legal notice nor informed of the legal provisions under which they had been detained. The allegations by Ranka and Gawande could not be independently verified from the details provided in the report. No police statement explaining the detention was included.