The standoff ended at 5.55 am on Thursday, and the Delhi Police team, which had been detained through the night at the Shoghi police post on the Shimla-Chandigarh highway, was allowed to proceed to Delhi with the three suspects.

“They (the suspects) were hiding in a resort in Himachal Pradesh… They were well aware that their colleagues had been arrested and they were in hiding,” Public Prosecutor Atul Kumar Srivastava submitted before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Mridul Gupta, seeking five days’ custody of the accused.

Eight other individuals, all members and office bearers of the IYC, including the president of the organisation Uday Bhanu Chib, had been arrested earlier.

Police told the court that Siddharth, one of the three men arrested in Himachal on Wednesday, had been involved in the designing and printing of the picture of the Prime Minister on the T-shirts worn by the protesters.

A second man who was arrested, Saurabh, had created a WhatsApp group to allegedly plan the protest, and the third, Arbaaz, had gone inside Bharat Mandapam along with the other protesters, the police alleged.

“They are part of the core planning team,” counsel for Delhi Police argued. “Their custody is required to identify others [in the conspiracy] and senior functionaries. They have to identify the printing press and will be confronted with other accused persons,” he said.

A group of around 10 men had entered hall 5 of Bharat Mandapam wearing T-shirts printed with a picture of the Prime Minister, which they had concealed under their winter clothes. Once inside, most of the protesters had taken off their tees, and had allegedly raised slogans against the PM.

Four of the protesters, all Youth Congress office-bearers, were arrested on the spot and remanded in five days’ police custody on February 21. Three other IYC leaders were arrested in Gwalior on February 23. Chib was arrested on Tuesday.

Counsel for defence described the police action against the three suspects picked up in Himachal as a “witch hunt”.

“Everything is documented… There is CCTV footage that is already making the rounds. Siddharth was not there [at the protest]. This is just a witch hunt,” he told the court. “They were protesting… The T-shirts have been recovered,” he said.

“There are no fresh grounds of arrest,” the defence counsel submitted. “There are no bodily crimes; it was a peaceful protest, everything has been procured… No police official was hurt there,” he said. “It is political targeting of the youth wing of a major opposition party… This is just trying to make an example for other parties as well,” he said.

The police have accused the IYC workers of raising “anti-national” slogans and breaching security at the venue of the Summit. The police have alleged that the incident was not spontaneous, and had been executed with prior planning. Initial investigations have established a structured allocation of roles, tactics for concealment, and coordinated post-incident movements, they have said.

Police have claimed that their investigation is aimed at unearthing the entire conspiracy, including its hierarchy, funding, and aspects of inter-state coordination.