Assam cockroaches just getting started: CJP leader dares Himanta after detention

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader Ashutosh Ranka hit back at Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after being released from what he called the “illegal detention” of him and other volunteers in Guwahati.

On Sunday, Ranka and over 40 CJP volunteers were detained from the residence of opposition Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) leader Kunki Chowdhury ahead of a scheduled meeting. The group was taken to the 10th Assam Police battalion headquarters in the city’s Kahilipara area, with authorities offering no clarity on the reason for their detention.

Following his release later in the evening, Ranka said in a post on X, "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."

In another post directly addressing the Chief Minister, he said, “Cockroaches of Assam are just getting started!”

Addressing a press conference after his release, Ranka said the police had detained him and his 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 scheduled meeting was to discuss issues including improving schools in Assam, protecting the rights of indigenous people in Kaziranga and what he alleged was the redrawing of constituency boundaries to benefit the ruling dispensation in the April election.

“(CM) Himanta Biswa Sarma is afraid of the cockroaches and used his police to threaten us. He forgets that this is the land of Zubeen (Garg), who fought for what is right. We want schools for our children and jobs for our youth,” Ranka said.Himanta is scared.People of Assam are waking up. pic.twitter.com/bp455d19HR— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) September 27, 2026

He also claimed that Sarma had “repeated the mistake” of Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the Jantar Mantar protest in Delhi and said the CJP’s movement would intensify across the northeast.

“Sarma may have all the resources, but we are not afraid. We are fighting for our rights,” Ranka said.

Earlier in the day, a video uploaded on Ranka’s X account showed him sitting in a moving vehicle with police personnel.

In the video, he was purportedly heard saying that Sarma had detained him and the CJP volunteers because he was “afraid” of the people of Assam and that the outfit wanted to “expose” the reality of schools in the state.

Talking to reporters while being taken away by police, Ranka had also alleged that the action showed the chief minister was “afraid of being exposed."

“He (Sarma) 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. Also, man-made floods have taken scores of lives. But, we are not afraid of him. We know that he won the assembly election by redrawing boundaries of constituencies,” he said., pic.twitter.com/eYYOV1lG0N— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) September 27, 2026

NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande, speaking to reporters after the detention, claimed that Ranka and 41 others were “illegally and unconstitutionally detained from a private residence when a meet-up was scheduled to take place with CJP volunteers."

Gawande said no legal notice was served on them, and they were not told which sections had been imposed.

“It is nothing short of jungle raj under CM Sarma, who is afraid of any and all kinds of dissent,” Gawande said.- Ends