Court raps cops for ‘unwarranted’ arrest of AAP MLA Gulab Singh

Delhi Police which went all the way to Surat to arrest AAP’s Gujarat Incharge Gulab Singh just before Delhi Chief Minister and AAP’s National Convener Arvind Kejriwal’s rally in the port city, failed to justify Singh’s arrest or their demand to take him in police remand before a Delhi Court. The court rather rapped the police officials for the unwarranted arrest of Singh, the AAP MLA from Matiala, and on Wednesday ordered to release him on bail.

“Gulab Singh gets bail on Wednesday. FIR against Imran quashed by Delhi High Court, on Tuesday. What purpose is served? Center harassing us because Delhi Government doing good work,” said Kejriwal in a tweet after the bail order. Singh and his associates were accused of extortion from two builders in his constituency.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Depender Pathak, Joint Commissioner of Police, South-Western Range, said: “We will move to higher court. So far, we have received two more complaints in which the complainants have alleged that Gulab Singh used to extort money from them. Apart from these complaints, we have been able to recover the DVR from Singh’s office in Matiala in which it is clearly shown that how Singh and his accomplices used to assemble here and return after extorting money. Apart from these, we have seized evidence that Singh obtained information about prospective victims through RTI. In all, we have recovered six drafted RTIs from his mailbox.”

Two property dealers Deepak Sharma and Rinku Diwan approached Delhi Police in September and alleged that Satish and Devinder, who work in Gulab Singh’s office, and an associate Jagdish, were extorting money from them by threatening to get the building from where the property dealers were operating demolished.

A case under Section 384 (punishment for extortion) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at 

Bindapur police station on September 13. Following this, a non-bailable warrant was issued against the MLA on October 14 for allegedly not joining probe.

Police had alleged that the MLA was arrested under the charge of running an extortion racket and there was concrete evidence against him for his arrest. It had alleged that the probe and statements by the arrested accused have revealed that it was an “organised extortion syndicate” with “links” to Yadav and he was the kingpin of the extortion exercise and its management. While rejecting police’s plea for a five-day remand of Singh on Tuesday, the court sent him to 14 days in judicial custody. On Wednesday, Singh was granted bail.

The court pulled up the police for acting in haste to arrest Singh and hiding important facts from court. The court said that while applying for a non-bailable warrant, the police did not disclose the fact that his counsel has informed the police in writing on October 10 that Singh is busy in Gujarat and will be in Delhi on October 18.