Hours after some MLAs of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came under criticism for allegedly beating up Delhi’s Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, the party claimed that its leaders Ashish Khetan and Imran Hussain were heckled and manhandled by a mob outside the Delhi Secretariat.
“Ashish Khetan and Imran Hussain heckled in Secretariat, volunteers thrashed by motivated elements showing up as employees. Delhi police says can’t help [sic],” read a tweet by AAP’s official Twitter handle on Tuesday afternoon.
Addressing the media after the incident, Mr. Khetan said there was an “unruly and aggressive mob” of around 150 people at the Secretariat. He said the crowd suddenly ran towards him without any provocation “shouting pro-BJP slogans”.
‘Police did nothing’
He blamed the Delhi Police for its “seemingly deliberate inaction against the mob”.
“A riot like situation was created in the Secretariat, where the ministers were attacked but the police took no action,” said Mr. Khetan.
“The mob kept shouting ‘ maaro maaro ’ [hit him, hit him] while trying to assault me. Just minutes after I was attacked, Imran Hussain was manhandled. It is shocking that at a place like the Delhi Secretariat, where the security arrangement is so high, an unruly crowd just barged in and beat us up,” he said.
The AAP leader added that his staff members and the lift operators were injured in the scuffle with the crowd. “All this seemed orchestrated. It all seems like the BJP government is using the Delhi Police to dethrone the Delhi government. None of the police officials on-duty did anything to defuse the situation and act against the mob,” he said.
Environment Minister Imran Hussain alleged that he was held captive in the lift as the crowd threatened to kill him. He also said that he had to wait for over an hour at the IP Estate police station to get his complaint registered.
‘Home Minister biased’
The party also alleged bias in a tweet by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, which said that “the civil servants should be allowed to work with dignity and without fear”.
“It seems that the Home Minister has already made up his mind on who is guilty in this case without even hearing our side of the story,” Mr. Khetan said.
Refuting allegations that AAP MLAs beat up Mr. Prakash, party spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said that “if he was actually beaten up then why wasn’t a complaint filed almost after 12 hours”.
“When alleged incident happened at night, why did CS not call the police to register the FIR? [sic],” he tweeted.
Mr. Prakash has filed a complaint on the basis of which the Delhi Police registered an FIR against AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan and 11 other legislators.
‘Casteist remarks’
Meanwhile, Prakash Jarwal and Ajay Dutt, AAP MLAs from Deoli and Ambedkar Nagar respectively, claimed the bureaucrat had made casteist remarks. We have lodged a complaint against him with the Delhi Police and the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Mr. Jarwal said.
