A Delhi court on Saturday granted five-day police custody of four Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers arrested for staging a protest at the AI Impact Summit venue, accepting the Delhi Police’s argument that custodial interrogation was necessary to probe the alleged conspiracy and funding behind the demonstration.

Judicial Magistrate Ravi allowed the Delhi Police's plea seeking five days of custodial interrogation of the accused persons. A detailed order is awaited.

The arrested protesters were Krishna Hari, national secretary of Youth Congress from Bihar; Kundan Yadav, IYC state secretary, Bihar; Ajay Kumar, IYC state president, Uttar Pradesh; and Narasimha Yadav from Telangana.

Seeking their custody, Delhi Police argued that the accused raised anti-national slogans and wore T-shirts bearing objectionable images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the event venue. The police submitted that the mobile phones of the accused needed to be recovered and examined, and that custodial interrogation was necessary as they belonged to different states.

Counsel for the police described the incident as a "serious" matter, stating that an attempt was made to stop the police during the protest, resulting in injuries to three personnel.

The prosecution further submitted that investigators needed to ascertain the alleged conspiracy behind organising the protest, the source of funding and where the T-shirts were printed.

Opposing the plea, the counsel appearing for the arrested protesters argued that they were associated with a political party and had exercised their democratic right to protest peacefully.

The advocate contended that their arrest greatly diminished the dignity of democracy and argued that if arrests are to be made for protesting, then MPs protesting in Parliament should also be arrested.