As the Delhi Police took Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke off his flight at the airport on Saturday morning, the Mumbai Police were sealing off August Kranti Maidan, where protesters had planned to gather in support of the CJP’s Jantar Mantar demonstration. By evening, hundreds had been detained at Nana Chowk, and the ground from which the Quit India movement was launched in 1942 lay empty behind three rings of barricades and over 500 police personnel.The gathering had been called by Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and president of Hum Bharat Ke Log, who posted a poster on X on Friday appealing to Mumbaikars to join him at the maidan in support of the CJP’s demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.Gandhi never got there. He and his associates were detained in Bandra on their way to the ground and taken to the DN Nagar police station.Hundreds of protestors, including Tushar Gandhi’s granddaughter Kasturi Gandhi, Bollywood actor Imran Khan, and Shiv Sena UBT MLA Varun Sardesai were detained.Also Read | CJP Protest Live UpdatesProtesters began trickling in by 3 pm anyway. The streets leading to the maidan had three layers of barricades, each about 100 metres apart, and each manned by nearly 50 police personnel who stopped and questioned pedestrians and diverted traffic. The final barricade was at Nana Chowk. That’s where protesters, shouting for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, were detained, bundled into about six police vans and taken to nearby police stations. Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders, including Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, Aaditya Thackeray, MLC Anil Parab, MLAs Pandurang Sakpal, Haroon Khan and Anant Nar, and Mumbai Congress vice-president Mohsin Haider, at a sit-in outside the DN Nagar police station on Saturday demanding the release of Tushar Gandhi. (Express Photo)“We had our political science examination in college. We completed our exam papers quickly and came here to join in the protests. When we reached the station, we saw that there is police deployment after every few metres. When we finally reached near the entry side of August Kranti Maidan, a police officer stopped us and started asking us about our college, where we had come from and threatened us by calling out the female officers to detain us,” said Falak Shaikh, 17, who came from Malad.Her friend Zoya Sheikh said they had attended the CJP’s Shivaji Park protest earlier, but Saturday’s scrutiny was far tighter.Story continues below this adLata Tendulkar, who came from Thane, said she was hurt when police tried to detain her. Pointing to scratches on her arm, she said, “We had been simply standing near the spot when the police started detaining innocent protesters. When we started recording, some female officers came in and started pulling at us. We resisted and questioned how we could be detained just for standing. But the police personnel kept on pulling at us and we could only be rescued after some people intervened. My sister and I were left with scratches while the police pressure damaged our friend’s spectacles.”Into the evening, protesters carrying posters, flags and copies of the Constitution kept arriving in the Grant Road area and trying to reach the maidan. None made it. Additional and Deputy Commissioners of Police were on the ground overseeing the arrangements. The barricades brought traffic at Nana Chowk to a crawl as motorists were diverted.In Delhi, the Delhi Police had denied permission for the Jantar Mantar protest, citing security concerns and an application filed on October 7 against a 10-day notice period. Over 2,000 people had been detained by 3 pm, among them Dipke and CJP spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, picked up from their aircraft, Mamata Banerjee outside her Delhi residence, Pinarayi Vijayan near Kerala House, and Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan on a march towards Dilli Haat. Over 250 trains were cancelled till 2 pm and restrictions hit more than 40 metro stations. Dipke, whose grandmother died in Hingoli on Saturday, was given the option of staying in detention or travelling to Maharashtra.