The difficulties of AAP have increased with the arrest of 2 AAP MLAs from Okhla Amanatullah Khan and party MLA from Mehrauli Naresh Yadav, who were held in Delhi on Sunday. These two were arrested over the murder allegation and Punjab’s Malerkotla sacrilege incident which held on June 24th respectively. The Punjab Police IG (Patiala Zone) Paramraj Singh Umra Nangal said in Chandigarh, “We have arrested AAP MLA Naresh Yadav from his house in Delhi. He will be produced in the Malerkotla court tomorrow.” With these two arrests, the total number of AAP MLAs arrested since the party swept into power in February 2015 has gone up to 11.
MLA Amanatullah Khan was first detained for questioning and then arrested, which happened subsequent to the day he quoted in the press conference that the woman was “forced” by the police for blaming him with false accusations.
On July 22, the woman had already recorded her statement before the magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC. She had alleged that while she was returning from the legislator’s residence, a vehicle stalked her and tried mowing her down. Amanatullah was reportedly sitting in that car” said the Joint Commission of Police, Southeast Range, R. P. Upadhyay.
A major twist in the case came when AAP leaders held a Press conference on Saturday and released video in which that woman is purportedly seen telling someone “that the SHO of the Jamia Nagar police station had asked her to add rape and murder charges in the FIR”.
The arrests had followed into the blame-game of AAP party supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, in which he blamed PM Narendra Modi for behind the arrests. Presently, Arvind Kejriwal is busy in the election campaigning for the Gujarat and Goa elections.
The opposition is also politicizing the matter by calling it the “inhuman behavior” of the AAP leaders and workers. Vijendra Gupta, Leader of Opposition has condemned the incident and accused Kejriwal of being “responsible” for it.
On the other hand, the accused explained his side of the story and said that “The woman is in touch with several BJP leaders and she was also taken to the magistrate by a lawyer who is affiliated with the BJP party. The video also states that police asked her to file a false complaint. The charge of rape was also added at the behest of police as a FIR would not have been possible otherwise”. He had further said that he has written a request to DCP (South-east), Delhi Police to file a FIR against the SHO and the woman for “framing” him.
