New Delhi: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Saturday alleged a crackdown on the satirical digital outfit, saying it does not have access to any of its social media accounts following a series of takedowns and hacking incidents.
In a post on X, he claimed his personal Instagram account has also been hacked.
This comes a day two days after the CJP’s account on X was withheld in India and Dipke created a new one.
The outfit on Friday launched a campaign seeking Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation over alleged systemic failures in the education sector and the NEET-UG 2026 paper “leak”. Later in the day, Dipke claimed that he was receiving death threats and shared screenshots of the threat messages.
In a post on X on Saturday, Dipke listed what he described as coordinated action against the movement.
“Crackdown on Cockroach Janta Party. Instagram page hacked. My personal Instagram hacked. Twitter account withheld. Back up account also taken down,” he said.
“Please note that we currently do not have access to any of our platforms. Any post made after this should not be considered an official statement from the Cockroach Janta Party,” he said.
The CJP website — cockroachjantaparty.org — has also been taken down, and is no longer accessible.
Dipke linked the action against the platform to its campaign against Pradhan.
“Action should have been taken against the Education Minister for the paper leak. For the student who lost his life due to the government’s failure. But in New India, action is being taken against the Cockroach Janta Party for demanding accountability,” he said.
In a post shared by its backup handle, ‘Cockroach is Back’, on X, the CJP said it had reached the milestone of “one million registered Cockroaches” on its website in less than a week.
“The movement keeps getting bigger despite all the crackdown!” it said.
At 8.25 am, another post by the handle said the CJP’s official Instagram account had been hacked and access to it had been lost.
At 6.50 am, the CJP issued a message distancing itself from any protest call.
“The Cockroach Janta Party has not given any such call. The government is just waiting for one mishap to demonise the entire movement. We request all cockroaches to remain peaceful and careful,” the post said.
The backup account, ‘Cockroach is Back’, had over 2,02,000 followers at the time of filing this report. Its Instagram account had over 21.9 million followers.
Dipke had earlier told PTI that attempts had been made to hack the CJP’s account and that legal options were being considered.
The CJP emerged last week amid a controversy surrounding remarks attributed to the Chief Justice of India during a court hearing and rapidly gained traction online through memes and political commentary around issues such as unemployment, examination paper leaks and education.
The withholding of its X handle in India has drawn criticism from digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation, which termed the action a misuse of state power.
