Police block thousands of ‘cockroach’ protesters marching on India’s parliament

Thousands of supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led protest movement, took to the streets of Delhi, defying a police ban to march to parliament and demand the resignation of India's education minister.

Although police had made clear protesters would not be given permission to march to parliament, tens of thousands of students, parents, teachers and professionals gathered from early morning at Jantar Mantar, a 300-year-old observatory in central Delhi, and remained there despite heavy rain.

Young people draped in Indian flags queued for food, painted placards and posed for photographs, while rows of police and paramilitary personnel sealed every road to parliament around them.