New Delhi: Delhi Police dragged and detained students and citizens protesting today (September 25) at Jantar Mantar for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.Among those detained through the day was popular YouTuber and The Wire‘s special correspondent Mohammad Irfan. In a short video message, Irfan revealed that the police threw his journalist’s ID and microphone. He also reported from a police station while he sought to report on the day’s developments.Irfan was released at night, several hours into the detention.Also detained were All India Students’ Association (AISA) national president Neha Bora, Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, and activists Yogendra Yadav and Anjali Bhardwaj, along with several activists of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India.Reports say 14 people were detained at the Dwarka Sector 32 police station, 30 at Jafarpur Kalan including one minor), another 14 at Kanjhawala, 33 at Narela and that one bus headed towards Badli in outer Delhi.All those detained by the police were released at around 8 pm. Some of the activists were able to release video statements while in police stations across the city.Yadav recorded a statement while being taken away with other activists on a police bus. He said, “We are not being told where we are being taken away,” he said, adding that there were 30 others on the bus, including women, and that they had not been offered water.“What is happeneing inside the election commission [referring to reports of dissent within the body over the SIR and other issues] is also happening on this bus – the driver says he is being forced to drive around the city against his will,” Yadav said.“Our only crime is that we raised our voice against the one who committed the biggest crime in the country – took away the right to vote of 10 crore people,” Yadav said.“All of us were gathering to protest peacefully against the election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, seeking his resignation, and the police gathered us all in three separate buses and took us around for several hours. Now we have been brought to the Dwarka police station and we have not been told what happens next to us,” said Bhardwaj in a separate video statement.Bora released a statement saying a separate group of students had been taken to the Kanjawala police station. “What was our crime? That we held the CEC accountable for his theft [of voters during the SIR]”, she said in her separate statement, released from the police station.“The constitution gives us the right to democratically dissent and that is why we had gathered at Jantar Mantar today,” Bora said.“We will keep coming back to protest, tomorrow and the day after and again, until Gyanesh Kumar is not jailed, the SIR is not stopped and voters deleted during this process are not restored,” she said.The Students Federation of India (SFI) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) also condemned the police action and demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all leaders and activists, strict action against the police personnel responsible for the assault“Its over 7 pm, protesters are still held in detention in various police stations across Delhi. Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary CPI ML, Yogendra Yadav, along with AISA leaders Neha, Nitish, Abhigyan, Ameen, Anjali and others too are yet to be released.“Nearly 200 protesters are yet to be released. What is Delhi Police planning? Rather than arresting Gyanesh Kumar, the culprit who has destroyed people’s vote. Detaining people demanding resignation is horrendous,” the Communist Party of India said.“Does Modi government want to arrest ‘We the People of India’ protecting the constitution, democracy and people’s rights to vote?” said CPI.Later on Friday evening, the CPI ML wrote on X that “all [have been] released from various police stations of Delhi”.In a post on X, CPI(M) wrote: “Delhi Police cracked down on a peaceful SFI-DYFI protest march to the Election Commission of India office in New Delhi, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, revocation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), and reforms to the Election Commission.”DYFI All India President and Rajya Sabha MP A A Rahim, Rajya Sabha MP V Sivadasan, SFI All India President Adarsh M Saji, and several SFI Delhi leaders and activists were detained during the protest, it wrote in the post. Earlier in the day, there were scenes of chaos at Jantar Mantar as police forces forcibly tried to end the protest.Students protesting at Jantar Mantar brutally detained to protect CEC Gyanesh Kumar who has sold out the electoral system and the nation. pic.twitter.com/rlNiAC0xb4— Neha (@neha_aisa) September 25, 2026“You can disrupt one demonstration and detain some of us, but the demand for resignation of Gyanesh Kumar which is now resonating across the country cannot be suppressed,” Bhattacharya has tweeted.Had joined AISA President Neha, Yogendra Yadav, noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj, AIKM General Secretary Purushottam Sharma and scores of student activists and progressive citizens of Delhi at Jantar Mantar to demand resignation of… pic.twitter.com/5hOevngnGJ— Dipankar (@Dipankar_cpiml) September 25, 2026Protesters were manhandled and taken away to undisclosed locations, they said. Police also blocked the roadways leading to and from Jantar Mantar.Detained protesters being taken away on a bus by Delhi Police, September 25, 2026.Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan strongly condemned the police action, noting that all the protesters had been detained by Delhi Police and transported to different locations in separate buses, said reports.Activist and former Delhi University professor Nandita Narain, who was part of the protests on Friday said that the election commission was “destroying the heart and soul of our democracy – one person, one vote and universal adult franchise.” She said there had been a “centralised digital capture” of the electoral process, which was hand-picking voters. Questions have arisen over the absence of name tags on police uniforms, a reminder of the brutality the force displayed in the same location during the protests for former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation in July.In unusual deployment to check unarmed protesters, Border Security Force (BSF) and Rapid Action Force (RAF) were also present at the venue.“The frightened Modi Govt has cracked down on protesters and detained Congress leaders and workers, young citizens and students, and civil society activists – in so many places across the country,” wrote Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on X.“Clearly the government is in panic mode after the expose of the [Indian] Express about the brazenly illegal & unilateral functioning of Gyanesh Kumar & the growing demand for his resignation & prosecution,” tweeted lawyer Prashant Bhushan.“Instead of catching criminals, the Delhi Police has taken all of us into custody to protect vote thieves – Dipankar Bhattacharya, Anjali Bhardwaj, and Neha Bora, including me and many young comrades, are being taken somewhere near Delhi Cantt; they haven’t told us yet which police station,” Yogendra Yadav said in a video message on X.TMC MP Mahua Moitra had participated in this protest and had earlier said, “Gyanesh Kumar is a criminal and he needs to be prosecuted. He needs to resign… The police is going to stop the protestors… The SIR process has to stop…”.This article was updated and published at 12.07 pm on September 26, 2026.