The Delhi Police arrested Sohail Hindustani, a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha activist, at Chanakyapuri here on Wednesday after questioning him for more than seven hours in the cash-for-votes scam case.
Hindustani reached the Crime Branch's Inter-State Cell around 10.30 a.m. in response to a notice the police served on him on Tuesday. He was formally arrested around 6 p.m., under the Prevention of Corruption Act, and will be produced in court on Thursday. Hindustani is the second person to be arrested in the case in less than a week.
Sanjeev Saxena, alleged to be an aide of the then Samajwadi Party general secretary, Amar Singh, was arrested on July 17, after the Supreme Court pulled up the Delhi Police for a shoddy probe.
Earlier, Hindustani told journalists outside the police complex that he would tell the police whatever he had told the Parliamentary Committee that probed the scandal, which rocked Parliament on July 22, 2008.
Hindustani alleged that he was approached by Mr. Amar Singh and several Congress leaders for “arranging” Bharatiya Janata Party MPs for the trust vote.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had sought the trust vote after the Left parties withdrew support over the India-U.S. nuclear deal. “Amar Singh approached me, saying that he was trying to save the government. I also got calls from several Congress leaders. I was offered Rs.5 crore-Rs.10 crore [in] commission for arranging each member of Parliament and also lured with offers of big posts like chairmanship.” Asked how many MPs he was told to “arrange,” Hindustani said: “They wanted me to arrange 15-16 MPs. Most of these MPs were either caught in legal tangle like a human trafficking case or facing a financial crunch. I cannot reveal the names of these MPs to the media.”
Sudheendra Kulkarni, political aide of the then Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, Mr. Amar Singh, now a Rajya Sabha member, and Lok Sabha member Ashok Argal of the BJP could also be questioned in the case.
