Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Somnath Bharti has been booked for allegedly ‘instigating’ some of his supporters to assault and misbehave with a woman during an Eid Milan function that was attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The three supporters have been booked under charges of molestation, assault, intimidation and outraging the modesty of a woman.
The MLA has been booked for abetment.
‘Misuse of police’
Mr. Bharti has dismissed the allegations as “misuse of the police” by the Modi government. “The Prime Minister is using the police to go after all AAP legislators. He intends to have all of us jailed,” the AAP MLA said.
Mr. Bharti also claimed that some police officers had “confessed” to him they were under “pressure”.
The MLA met senior police officers on Wednesday and in his defence submitted some videos of the event where the alleged incident took place.
The FIR was registered at Saket police station in South Delhi on Tuesday based on the woman’s statement.
The alleged incident took place in Malviya Nagar area on July 8 at a function organised by Mr. Bharti, the local legislator.
Complainant’s story
Joint CP (South-Eastern Range) R.P. Upadhyay said that the complainant runs an NGO and is a former member of the AAP.
Mr. Upadhyay said that the complainant attended the function along with other women members from her NGO. The problem began when the complainant wanted the other women to meet Mr. Kejriwal on the stage and tell him about their work.
“The complainant said in her statement that when the women tried to make their way to the CM, they were stopped by three supporters of Mr. Bharti. They allegedly misbehaved with her and assaulted her. She alleged that the MLA was instigating them to abuse her,” the Joint CP told The Hindu .
MLA’s story
However, Mr. Bharti said he and his supporters were nowhere in the picture and that the women wanting to meet the CM were stopped by the police. “The women breached the CM’s security and were stopped by the police. They confronted the policewomen. We were nowhere in the picture,” Mr. Bharti told The Hindu .
Video clip
In a video clip of the function the Mr. Bharti posted on Twitter to substantiate his claims, some women could be seen entering into a scuffle with policewomen and even assaulting one of them.
The Hindu could not independently verify the authenticity of the video or whether they were the same women who his supporters are accused of misbehaving with.
