Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), was released by an Indian court on Saturday, one day after his detention for attempting to lead a protest rally in New Delhi.
The movement published a photo of him on X in which he referred to Dipke as "a free man."
The CJP's head of legal affairs, Ratna Singh, said Dipke was released after agreeing to certain conditions. She did not provide details about the terms.
Neha Bora, a prominent student activist and the face of the protests, was also detained on Friday while attempting to reach central Delhi with dozens of supporters. She was released earlier on Saturday.
Dipke called Friday's protest a show of support for the two CJP leaders detained and jailed for five days this week for demonstrating at an unauthorized protest site.
Opposition parties and CJP activists defied a security crackdown and rallied to demand the resignation of India's chief election commissioner.
They accuse the election commission of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party.
India's top court declared that access to and use of the internet is a fundamental right of every individual, including children, legal news outlet LiveLaw reported Saturday.
It said that a blanket ban on children's internet activity could make them vulnerable to greater risks rather than protect them from online abuse and exploitation.
The Supreme Court also issued directions to bolster the processes for detecting and removing child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) from social media and other online platforms, the report said.
The court stressed that the right to freedom of speech and expression also incorporates the right to know, receive and impart information and ideas, LiveLaw reported.
The two-judge bench described the internet as a "marketplace of ideas, creative expression and information" and said that its value went beyond the material it contains, as it provides opportunities for children in remote areas and those with disabilities.
"For many children, particularly in remote areas, it is often the only source of learning and information," the court said, according to LiveLaw.
For children with special needs, the internet is often the only platform where they can find company with others like them, the court said.
The court acknowledged that the internet, in its current form, poses safety risks to children. But it said that keeping children away from the internet because of failures by platforms and the relevant authorities to detect and remove harmful content would amount to mistaking the victim for the problem, LiveLaw reported.
The Supreme Court said that a legal ban would not stop children from using the internet, and that they could move to other unregulated platforms.
"Any blanket restriction on the access of internet by children is nothing more than unproven measures of proven disproportionality," LiveLaw cited the court as saying.
The Supreme Court called for safeguards to ensure online child safety and the regulation of content accessible to children. It suggested measures such as a "child mode" for social media accounts, LiveLaw said.
Six lawmakers from the United States' Democratic Party have called on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to raise India's handling of the youth protests during his visit next week.
The US representatives include Pramila Jayapal, Ilhan Omar, Jim McGovern, Rashida Tlaib, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Jesus Garcia.
"As the world's largest democracies, the US and India have an obligation to promote and defend the rights to freedom of assembly and expression," Jayapal wrote on X, sharing a letter addressed to Rubio.
The letter alleges a "pattern of repression, wrongful detention, and excessive use of force by security forces" during the student protests in Delhi and other parts of the country.
The lawmakers also highlight incidents of "apparent surveillance," saying that they had received reports that the Indian diplomatic missions in the US "hired photographers to surveil protesters on American soil."
"These incidents raise particular alarm in light of India's documented pattern of engaging in transnational repression, including through the weaponization of consular services, harassment, intimidation, and physical violence," the letter said.
The group urged Rubio to prioritize the issues in his discussion with Indian officials.
The US Secretary of State is visiting India early next week, after traveling to Uzbekistan. He is slated to meet Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar in Mumbai. His agenda also shows a trip to Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat.
All India Students' Association (AISA) President Neha Bora, who was also detained during the latest protest in New Delhi on Friday was released later in the night.
Bora has emerged as a prominent face in the protests against India's top poll official. Speaking to the media after her release, Bora called for Dipke and other protesters to be released, saying that they had been "illegally detained".
"They are ordinary citizens demanding accountability and their right to vote. Carrying out such illegal detentions and keeping people at the police station overnight makes no sense at all," Bora said.
A widespread review exercise — called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) — has struck off over 130 million names from India's electoral rolls since it began last year.
Opposition leaders and critics say that those removed from the voter lists include a large proportion of minority voters. They accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP of using the exercise as a tool to secure future electoral gains.
The neutrality of the Election Commission of India (ECI) is being questioned. The ECI denies favoring any party. It says the SIR removes deceased, relocated and duplicate voters and also helps in preventing the inclusion of "foreign illegal immigrants."
Modi's party has slammed its opponents for undermining democracy and has denounced the protests as attempts to create "anarchy".
BJP's Rajnath Singh — who is also India's defense minister — addressed the protests at a press conference on Friday. Singh accused the opposition, led by the Congress party, of wanting to bring a "regime change along the lines of Bangladesh" and using Indian youth as "pawns in the politics of disorder."
"It appears that the Congress and its political allies, both directly and through their affiliated organisations, are attempting to channel the energy of young people not into constructive activities and nation-building, but into instruments of political confrontation and the spread of chaos," he said.
Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) Founder Abhijeet Dipke has been arrested, following his detention on Friday when he stepped out to participate in a rally he had called in New Delhi, media reports said.
Dipke was arrested to prevent a breach of the peace and will be taken before a Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) court later today, news agencies ANI and PTI reported.
CJP legal affairs head Ratna Singh also said that Dipke had been arrested, adding that he would appear before the SEM court in central Delhi's Mandir Marg at 12 p.m. (630 UTC).
Singh claimed that Dipke's lawyers had not met him.
The 'Cockroach' movement said early on Saturday that they did not know where their founder had been detained, calling his detention a "kidnapping."
"Until now, neither his parents nor his lawyers and not the CJP team have been given any updates about his location," the CJP said on X, as it published a video of CJP leader Ajinkya Shinde asking about Dipke's whereabouts.
Dipke was detained publicly on Friday as he left the house in Jhandewalan where he was staying to take part in CJP's 'Lehra Do Tiranga' (Wave the tricolor) protest rally in Connaught Place.
Videos of his detention showed the CJP founder being told by a police official that he was being placed under "preventive detention" before he was taken to a police car.
Dipke was seen displaying India's flag as police and media personnel surrounded him. Some supporters were seen trying to block the police vehicle from driving away with Dipke.
Just hours earlier, a group of Delhi Police officials had visited the 31-year-old at the Jhandewalan residence and served him a notice barring the Friday protest.
The Delhi Police had previously reiterated that Section 163 of India's criminal procedure law, which prohibits any form of assembly or protest, was in force in the Connaught Place area.
"The manner in which he was picked up from right outside his residence, no information about his whereabouts, and the fact that even his lawyers have been unable to meet him raise serious concerns about due process and fundamental rights," Singh wrote on X.
Even after Dipke's detention, hundreds of protesters turned up in Connaught Place defying the heavy security deployment. The protesters were seen waving the Indian national flag as part of the CJP's 'Tricolor' rally. According to police, some 150 protesters were detained during the demonstrations.
The fresh protests came after CJP co-conveners Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were sent to a five-day detention in jail on Wednesday for alleged violation of prohibitory orders and breach of a peace bond after they attempted a demonstration. They too were carrying the Indian tricolor and the flag has since been at the center of CJP's campaign.
The Indian flag "belongs to the 1.3 billion people of this country and not the Delhi police. We will wave it where we want!" the movement has said.
Dipke, Das and Ranka were earlier detained on October 10 from a plane as they arrived in the capital for a protest march calling for the resignation of India's Chief Election Commionser Gyanesh Kumar over alleged manipulation of voter lists. They were released after nearly 24 hours.
