Three leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party were released from detention on Sunday after police took them into custody on Saturday. The group, which opposes voter roll revisions, must commit no breach of peace for one year. Meanwhile, New Delhi remains on high alert as more protests are expected soon.
The three leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party, a popular youth movement in India, were released from detention on Sunday, a day after police officers took them into custody as they were preparing to lead a protest against sweeping revisions of the nation's voter roll.
Ratna Singh, a Cockroach leader who acts as the group's legal director, said on social media that the three leaders had been released on the condition that they commit "no breach of peace for one year."
It was not immediately clear whether that condition essentially amounted to a gag order. Nor was it known whether the leaders -- Abhijeet Dipke, who created the Cockroach movement, along with Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka -- would appear at a second day of protests that their party and other activist groups called for on Sunday. The group said it would hold a news conference on Sunday afternoon.
The three men waved to journalists assembled outside the police station as they were swiftly loaded into a black vehicle and driven away. Mr. Dipke was seen wearing the same T-shirt he had on Saturday -- bearing an image of Mohandas K. Gandhi, India's leader of nonviolent protest.
"Cockroaches never die," the group's X account declared, minutes after their release. It included a cockroach emoji.
The detention of the three men on Saturday was part of an extraordinary show of force by Indian security officials, who rounded up thousands of would-be protesters and stuffed them into buses and vans. Trains to the capital were canceled, subway stations were closed and the internet was shut down in much of New Delhi.
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