Saturday, October 10, was a day when you couldn’t walk far in central Delhi without hitting a barricade. More than 40,000 Delhi Police and Central Armed Police Forces personnel were out across the capital. And somewhere near Bangla Sahib, a woman with a very particular family tree posted a line that spread fast: she’d been detained “for sitting in a park.”
Her name is Yashaswinee Raje Singh. Her father, Vikram Singh, is a former BJP MLA. Let me be honest, that one detail is why her post travelled so far.
A Park, a Post, and Keshav Puram Police Station
What she actually said
Yashaswinee wrote on X that she was detained near Bangla Sahib for sitting in a park, and that she was being held at Keshav Puram police station. It was short and flat, with no drama. News24 reported it around 3:30 pm. The detention happened as part of the heavy security ahead of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar.
Why her name rang a bell
Her father represented Fatehpur Sadar in Uttar Pradesh. She’d already become a familiar face during the student protests in June and July, when young people demanded Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation over paper leaks, and she backed the CJP campaign back then.
But here’s the thing. Everything about her detention comes from her own post and the reports built around it. I couldn’t find a Delhi Police statement about her case specifically, so her account stands on its own for now.
The Capital on Lockdown
The day in numbers
Here’s the quick snapshot of how the day looked:
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| First | 40,000+ Delhi Police and CAPF personnel deployed across the capital |
| Second | Over 2,000 protesters detained in Delhi (the early count) |
| Third | Jantar Mantar sealed off, even for media, with barricades on the roads leading in |
| Fourth | Prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS, with loudspeaker warnings at entry and exit points |
| Fifth | The protest’s demand: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation |
And the 2,000 figure didn’t stay put. Live blogs later carried far bigger tallies, with some headlines going as high as 7,000. So treat every number from that day as a moving target.
The police position
Police made their stance clear. An Additional DCP said Section 163 was in force in the district and that people who went to the site were being detained. Permission for Jantar Mantar had been denied, he added, and nobody would be allowed to protest or gather there. Drones and CCTV were keeping an eye on things too.
Bigger names caught in the net
Yashaswinee wasn’t the only one. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were detained at Delhi’s airport after their flight landed. The CPI(M) said leaders including MA Baby and Brinda Karat were held after reaching Jantar Mantar. AISA president Neha Bora was detained near Safdarjung airport, and activist Yogendra Yadav said an unmarked car had been tailing him and others on their way.
Earlier that morning, CJP legal head Ratna Singh was also detained, and a Saket court later turned down her plea for an FIR against the police. Live reports from Connaught Place also mentioned two police personnel injured in stone-pelting. It was a long, tense, strange day.