India’s cockroach party leaders freed as election chief protests mount

NEW: India's 'Cockroach' party leaders released on Sunday, a day after their detention, as New Delhi braces for mass protests demanding the chief election commissioner resign over alleged voter-roll irregularities.

India detained the leaders of a party called the Cockroach Janta Party, straight off a plane.

Abhijeet Dipke, the party's founder, and two colleagues flew into New Delhi from Mumbai on Saturday and never made it out of the airport. Police held them before they could even disembark. The reason, a major protest they were about to lead against India's chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, over alleged irregularities in a nationwide voter roll revision.

A day later, an executive magistrate's court let them go, and their lawyer Ratna Singh says the condition was striking. No breach of peace for one year. You can see what the streets looked like here, police pulling demonstrators away as the capital braced for mass protests demanding Kumar resign.

So the party with the strangest name in Indian politics just became the story. And the detention meant to stop a protest may have handed them a far bigger one.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.