Cockroach Janata Party founder says sites, web accounts blocked India News
New Delhi: Online satire movement Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) suffered another blow on Saturday when founder Abhijit Dubke said the official website of the organization has been taken down by the Centre, days after its main X handle was blocked in India following a legal demand.However, there was no statement from the Center till the filing of this report and a counter-narrative was running on social media that Dipke was playing the “victim card” by deleting his website. Deepke did not respond to messages and DMs.Dipke alleged that the website was removed after the movement grew rapidly among young users online and amid the petition over NEET-UG paper leak. “The government has taken down our iconic website,” he wrote, adding that “10 lakh cockroaches” had registered and “6 lakh cockroaches” had signed a petition demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. In another post, Dubke stepped up his attack on the Centre, asking, “Why is the government so afraid of cockroaches?” He said the episode was exposing India’s youth to “dictatorial behavior”.In another X post, he said that the party’s Instagram page, his personal Instagram account and a backup X handle have also been hit. “You can hack and block accounts but you can’t hack this movement,” Dupke wrote. He stressed that the campaign would continue online.According to sources, the original CJP handle on X was blocked in India after the Ministry of Electronics and IT took action under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act on Intelligence Bureau inputs citing sovereignty and national security concerns. Neither X nor the Ministry of Home Affairs and Information Technology provided any official confirmation.X’s own policy states that an “account frozen” notice reflects action taken in response to a valid legal demand or local law. After the ban, the party soon launched a handle called Cockroach is Back.The viral, meme-driven movement emerged following the controversy over Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s comments that sparked outrage online, before he clarified that his comments were aimed at people using “bogus and bogus degrees” and not unemployed youth. On Saturday, BJP’s Rajiv Chandrashekhar alleged that CJP’s overtures were part of a cross-border “influence campaign”, a charge Deepke denied.
