Cockroach Janta Party leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were released on Sunday after preventive detention. Police detained them on Saturday upon landing in Delhi to stop a planned protest. Dipke said, "This is dictatorship, where Delhi Police has entered the flight and is trying to arrest us."

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were released by an Executive Magistrate on Sunday, the party's legal affairs head Ratna Singh said.

They were placed under preventive arrest after being detained by Delhi Police when their flight landed in the national capital on Saturday ahead of a planned protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Police had made elaborate security arrangements and prevented protesters from reaching Jantar Mantar on Saturday.

Notably, Dipke, Das and Ranka were detained by police inside an aircraft shortly after their flight from Mumbai landed in Delhi.

In a video shared by the CJP, Dipke could be heard telling police officers who entered the aircraft, "We are here to be arrested, come and arrest us."

Before the detention, police personnel told the CJP leaders that they did not have permission to hold their protest at Jantar Mantar.

Dipke said CJP leaders were being detained as if they were criminals. He said that even former prime minister Indira Gandhi had not done this, adding that it amounted to dictatorship.

In the video, Dipke is heard alleging: "This is the fear of Narendra Modi... Not even Indira Gandhi did this during the Emergency. All we wanted to do is a peaceful protest, and they are picking us up from the flight like we are criminals."

"This is dictatorship, where Delhi Police has entered the flight and is trying to arrest us. Come on, arrest us. We are here to be arrested. Come on, arrest us. We are here to be arrested... We are not afraid of you," he said.

New Delhi virtually turned khaki on Saturday, with more than 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel deployed ahead of the CJP protest.

Barricades lined the streets, 45 metro stations were closed, and intensive checks were carried out at the city's border points, railway stations, bus terminals, hotels and other sensitive locations, leaving the capital gridlocked.

More than 7,000 protesters were detained across Delhi on Saturday, including more than 2,000 in the New Delhi area, police sources said.