Police Free Neha Bora and Hold Abhijeet Dipke

Delhi Police released student leader Neha Bora on Saturday. Abhijeet Dipke remains in custody and is due before a magistrate.

On Saturday 17 October 2026, Delhi Police said the president of the All India Students' Association, Neha Bora, had been released early in the morning. Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, was still in custody. Police said he would be produced before a special executive magistrate. The two were detained on Friday 16 October on their way to the Lehra Do Tiranga march, which called on people to wave the national flag at Central Park in Connaught Place. Police said Bora was released after procedures under section 65 of the Delhi Police Act. They said action against Dipke had been started under sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the law that replaced the old criminal procedure code. A special executive magistrate can order someone to keep the peace. That is not the same as a criminal conviction. Bora walked out and Dipke did not.

Why it matters

The march asked for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and protested the jailing of two party leaders, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das. On Friday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, speaking in Lucknow, said the Congress and its allies wanted a regime change like the one in Bangladesh, and were using young people to spread disorder. He said democracy does not give anyone a licence to create disorder or to undermine constitutional institutions. Independent Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal answered on Saturday. He wrote that people, not the Congress, want a change of government, and that protests against corruption had once brought this government to power. The Congress said a change of government in India happens through elections, and that seeking one is not wrong. It said the opposition's job is to oppose, expose and depose. A flag march and a minister's charge of anarchy are now the same argument, heard from opposite sides.

Key facts

• Neha Bora was released early on Saturday 17 October. Abhijeet Dipke is to be produced before a special executive magistrate.

• Police cited section 65 of the Delhi Police Act for Bora, and sections 126 and 170 of the new criminal procedure law for Dipke.

• The two were detained on Friday on the way to the Lehra Do Tiranga march. Central Park stayed closed.

• Rajnath Singh said the protests sought a Bangladesh-style regime change. Kapil Sibal said people want a change of government.

• Farmers under the Samyukt Kisan Morcha plan to march to Delhi on 23 October, led in the briefing by Ashok Dhawale.

• Six American lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to raise the handling of the protests on his India visit.

What's next

Dipke's appearance before the magistrate will decide whether he is freed, bound over to keep the peace, or held longer. The farmers' groups say they will march to Delhi on 23 October and protest the same day at district and block headquarters. Rubio is due to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Mumbai next week. The letter asking him to raise the detentions does not bind the Indian government. It does put the policing of a flag march on the table of a visit that was meant to be about energy and trade.