Published Oct 11, 2026 | 2:54 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 11, 2026 | 2:54 PM
Rathee said the manner in which he was taken from his home would not be acceptable in a democracy.
Synopsis: YouTuber and political commentator Dhruv Rathee has accused plainclothes Delhi Police personnel of forcibly taking him from his Gurugram home, denying him access to a lawyer and a telephone, and holding him for 22–23 hours on Saturday ahead of the anti-SIR protests. Rathee accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of turning India into a dictatorship and said the police crackdown illustrated an “unofficial Emergency” in the country.
A day after he was detained by the Delhi Police ahead of the anti-SIR protests in the national capital, YouTuber and political commentator Dhruv Rathee accused plainclothes personnel of forcibly “kidnapping” him from his home in Gurugram’s Sector 56, denying him access to a lawyer and a telephone, and illegally holding him for 22–23 hours.
He alleged that dozens of men in plain clothes entered his home on the morning of Saturday, 10 October, manhandled his parents, dragged him out of his bedroom and took him away without formally arresting him.
In a video posted on X on Sunday, Rathee said he had “always been” an Indian citizen and would remain one, entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.
“These people literally kidnapped me and took me away. I am using the word kidnapped here because this was not an arrest, nor was it a detention. Detention would have been the case if I had gone to the protest. If I had been protesting there and the police had detained me, that would have been a different matter,” he said.
“It would have been an arrest if a police officer had come, shown me their uniform, shown me their nameplate, and formally arrested me, saying, ‘Look, these are the sections, these are the charges. Come with us to the police station.’ I would have gone willingly, happily.”
I was not arrested or detained, I was KIDNAPPED.
Thank you for your support, here’s the full story 👇 https://t.co/gcN8cAUOmY
— Dhruv Rathee (@dhruv_rathee) October 11, 2026
Rathee said the men seized his phone, which had been lying beside him, and took his parents’ phones as well. At the police station, he asked to meet his lawyer but was refused permission, he alleged. He was also denied access to a telephone.
He said he was made to sit at the premises for nearly 22–23 hours while those holding him insisted that he had neither been arrested nor detained and would be released.
“They kept saying, ‘No, no, this is not an arrest. This is not a detention. Don’t worry, you’ll be released,’” he said.
Rathee said the manner in which he was taken from his home would not be acceptable in a democracy and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of turning the country into a dictatorship.
“Have you ever heard of something like this happening in any democratic country? That an ordinary citizen who has broken no law, who has merely raised their voice for the truth, raised their voice in the national interest, and demanded a better Election Commission, is taken away from their bedroom after people break into their home, is kidnapped, their parents are beaten up and physically manhandled, and then they are taken away in this manner?” he said.
“This does not happen in any democratic country. Narendra Modi has turned this country into a dictatorship,” he said.
Rathee said the Delhi Police crackdown on the protest illustrated the ‘unofficial Emergency’ in effect in the country.
“Those who were celebrating, those who don’t like me and were feeling a little happy, thinking, ‘Look, this is happening to him’—when a dictatorship sets in, just think a little about yourselves, because if this can happen to me, it can happen to you tomorrow too,” he said.
“And I would like to say to Narendra Modi: Don’t frighten people so much that all their fear disappears. How much longer will you keep people suppressed? The more you suppress them, the louder and more forcefully their voices will rise. Read a little history and see for yourself.”
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
