The Delhi police on May 18 arrested Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s aide Bibhav Kumar in connection with a case of alleged assault on the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal.
Hours before his arrest, a court dismissed the anticipatory bail plea filed by Mr. Kumar who too has lodged a complaint against Ms. Maliwal for gaining “unauthorised entry” into the CM’s residence and verbally abusing him.
When Mr. Kumar was produced in the Tis Hazari court around 9.30 p.m., police sought seven days remand for interrogation. The court, however, granted a five-day remand. Earlier, they had escorted him to Aruna Asif Ali hospital for medical examination after the arrest.
According to agencies, Additional Public Prosecutor, Atul Srivastava, representing the Delhi Police, said that the pen drive in which the CCTV footage of the CM’s residence was given to the police was found to be blank.
Mr. Kumar’s counsel told the court that the Delhi Police was distorting facts.
Ms. Maliwal posted on X, “First Bibhav beat me brutally. He slapped and kicked me. When I freed myself and called 112, he went outside and called the security and started making a video. I was screaming and telling the security that Bibhav had beaten me brutally. That entire long part of the video was edited. Only 50 seconds were released when I was fed up of explaining to the security guys. Now they formatted the phone and deleted the entire video? CCTV footage is also missing! Even conspiracy has its limits!”
The arrest has sparked a war of words between AAP and the BJP in the national capital as the former termed the police action as “part of the BJP’s conspiracy”. The BJP, on the other hand, said that AAP has “minus credibility”.
As AAP leaders posted comments on social media questioning the complaint of Ms. Maliwal, the Rajya Sabha member posted on social media platform X that she had received information that the CCTV footage from the residence of the CM was being tampered with.
Meanwhile, the medico-legal report accessed by The Hindu showed that Ms. Maliwal had received injuries in the left leg and above her right cheekbone.
Sanjeev Nasiar, State president of AAP’s legal cell said, that Mr. Kumar had been arrested without being given a copy of the FIR. “We have filed an application in the court saying that we have not yet received a copy of the FIR. We wanted to go inside (Civil Lines police station) but we are being stopped,” he said.
Earlier in the day, AAP leader Atishi had accused the BJP of running an operation wherein cases are filed against leaders of Opposition parties, and then they are “blackmailed” or forced to become turncoats.
“This is BJP’s standard operating procedure. It first files cases against Opposition leaders with the help of the Economic Offences Wing, Enforcement Directorate, Anti-Corruption Bureau and, on the basis of these cases, they will blackmail the leaders or they ask them to become a turncoat. There have been many such cases like Himanta Biswa Sarma, Praful Patel or Ajit Pawar,” she said at a press conference.
On Saturday, AAP’s official handle on X posted a clip of CCTV footage showing Ms. Maliwal exiting the CM’s residence. Taking a dig at Ms. Maliwal’s allegations that she was brutally attacked, Ms. Atishi said that the MP was not seen “quivering in pain”, “limping”, or with any visible signs of injuries in the footage.
Raising a question over the legitimacy of the claim, Ms. Atishi questioned why Ms. Maliwal had not lodged the official complaint on the day of the incident and why she did not go for a medical examination that day.
Ms. Atishi alleged that Ms. Maliwal was the “face of the conspiracy” hatched by the top leaders of the BJP, to tarnish the CM’s reputation. She added that the BJP was using a case against Ms. Maliwal filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau regarding “illegal” recruitment of contractual employees, to coerce her to carry out their agenda.
She also demanded to know why the Delhi Police refused to give a copy of the FIR to the Tis Hazari court or the accused, despite “the media receiving copies of the FIR from BJP leaders”.
In a counter, BJP national president J.P. Nadda said that the Kejriwal-led party had “minus credibility”. “AAP is built on a foundation of lies... its credibility is not zero, it has ‘minus’ credibility,” Mr. Nadda said. He said that this incident had “exposed” Mr. Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party’s national convener, before the people of Delhi and the country.
Mr. Nadda posed the question as to why Mr. Kejriwal passed the mic on Thursday when he was asked about the issue.
“We never spoke to her (Maliwal), nor did anyone from our party contact her. This is not how we function. We are very straightforward. AAP can stoop to any level,” he added.
