Rahul Gandhi: Twitter restores Congress party member accounts

Rahul Gandhi and other Congress party members were locked out of their Twitter

Twitter has restored the accounts of senior members from India's opposition party Congress, days after they shared pictures of the family of an alleged rape victim.

The image showed the parents of a nine-year-old, who was allegedly raped and murdered in the capital, Delhi.

Twitter said the accounts have now been restored after Mr Gandhi submitted formal consent from those pictured.

He previously accused Twitter of interfering in India's politics.

Mr Gandhi, who has more than 19 million followers, posted the image last week, telling his followers that the family deserved justice.

Relatives of the child, a Dalit girl, say that the girl was attacked by a Hindu priest and three others after going to fetch drinking water from a crematorium's cooler.

They also allege that her attackers cremated her body without their permission after the attack - Dalits were formerly known as Untouchables.

The incident triggered protests and outrage in the country.

Twitter deleted Mr Gandhi's post after India's child rights body asked it to remove the photograph from its platform, pointing out that it revealed the identity of the rape victim - which is forbidden under Indian law.

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As Mr Gandhi refused to delete the image, the micro-blogging site locked his account. Not long after, the official account of the Congress party, several of its leaders and "about 5,000 volunteers" who had retweeted Mr Gandhi - were also locked.

Although the accounts have since been unlocked, the tweet in question cannot be viewed in India to comply with the law, a notification from the social media site to a Congress leader said.