AAP moves Delhi HC for an SIT probe; cops say 8 nabbed so far

New Delhi: AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj Thursday approached the Delhi High Court seeking constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for a fair and time bound investigation into the alleged attack outside the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during a protest against his remarks on 'The Kashmir Files' film.

The petition, which has also sought directions to Delhi Police and Ministry of Home Affairs for ensuring the security of the Chief Minister and his residence in future, is likely to be listed for hearing on Friday.

On Wednesday, members of the BJP youth wing had allegedly vandalised property outside the residence of AAP convenor Kejriwal here during a protest against his remarks on the film after which a criminal case was registered by the Delhi Police against unidentified persons in connection with the incident.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police has arrested eight people. According to sources, the eight people were arrested from Delhi and the numbers could go up as teams have been sent to make more arrests.

Those arrested have been identified as Chandrakant (27) of Meet Nagar, Pradeep Tiwari (27) and Raju Kumar Singh (28) of Kirti Nagar, Jitender Bisht (40) of Karawal Nagar, Naveen Kumar (38) and Bablu Kumar (35) of Jahangirpuri, Neeraj Dixit (25) of Sitapur, and Sunny (21) of Azadpur, the police said.

The case was registered under various provisions of the IPC, including Sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty).

Section 3 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act has also been invoked and police was trying to make arrests. Bhardwaj, in his petition through advocate Bharat Gupta, alleged that the attack and vandalisation of the

official residence of the Chief Minister appears to have been carried out with Delhi Police's tacit complicity.

On March 30, 2022, several BJP goons, in the garb of a protest, launched an attack on the official residence of the Delhi CM. Videos and photographs show that these goons casually walked through the security cordon (maintained by Delhi Police), kicked and broke the boom barrier, broke the CCTVs cameras with lathis, threw paint on the gate of the residence and almost climbed over the gate, while Delhi Police personnel simply looked on, doing little to stop the protestors, the plea alleged. The MLA said while he strongly supports the right to protest peacefully, even if such protest is against the Delhi Government, violence cannot and ought not to be permitted and condoned. In this case, the violence was especially egregious as it was directed towards the Delhi CM and his family. It was meant to subdue, by the use of force, the highest elected official in NCT of Delhi and therefore the elected Government of Delhi. This was a direct attack on democracy, the plea said.

It added that those who were charged with protection of the Delhi CM, that is, Delhi Police, completely abdicated their duty, without any regard for the fact that they were protecting an elected constitutional functionary and the fact that he was given Z+ security by Delhi Police itself.