Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday slammed the BJP over the scuffle at Jantar Mantar between police and wrestlers and called its treatment of national sportspersons shameful and arrogant. Kejriwal in a tweet in Hindi said that arrogance has gone to the head of the BJP and it wanted to run the system through “hooliganism” as he called on people to throw it out of power. Kejriwal sharing a video of Jantar Mantar tweeted “such behaviour with the champion players of the country? This is extremely unfortunate and shameful...”
“I appeal to all the people in the country...No more...Do not tolerate BJP’s hooliganism, the time has come to uproot the BJP and chase them away,” he wrote. Kejriwal had recently visited the wrestlers to extend his support to them.
Later addressing a press conference later in the day, the AAP’s chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said the tweet by the New Delhi DCP has “three lies”.
“Police have been accused of misbehaving with one of the women wrestlers. They are the accused and they are only probing the matter. The Delhi Commission For Women (DCW) will probe the matter. DCW chief Swati Maliwal had reached the spot along with a counsellor last night after receiving the complaint. What did the police do? They threw her away. Police are not allowing an investigation. Please read law books and basic law,” he said.
Bharadwaj also questioned the police’s claims that its personnel were not drunk. He claimed that the personnel who was allegedly drunk was made to throw up by the police so that alcohol could not be detected in a test.
“The police should be ashamed. They did not allow cots. The special commissioner of police was at the spot. The DCP was there. Dushyant Phogat sustained head injuries yesterday. How did he sustain a head injury? All this drama is being done by them,” he alleged. The AAP leader even claimed that the injuries suffered by the police personnel could be “self-inflicted”.
“There were so many cameramen there but no one captured the injured policemen. Even small-time criminals in Tihar know that they can inflict injuries by scratching themselves or hitting their heads against a wall. It is a cheap thing that they inflicted injuries on their own. They are only telling lies,” he said.
Bharadwaj also alleged that the Delhi Police officials were being directed by the Centre to do this. “This is not Delhi Police’s lie but the Centre’s lie. The Centre is being exposed.”
He also said the protest site was made out-of-bounds for people with the police barricading the area. “People were lathi-charged. Who issued orders for a lathi-charge? What was happening? Police will have to answer. The Centre’s arrogance was shattered by farmers. Similarly, these women wrestlers will break their arrogance,” he added.
Before meeting with wrestlers, Maliwal had alleged that she was not being allowed to meet the wrestlers.
In a video shared by her on Twitter, Maliwal could be seen telling policemen that she holds a constitutional post and wanted to meet the protesters. In response to her tweet, DCP, New Delhi, tweeted, “Hon’ble Chairperson DCW was stopped at the barricade by an officer and let go immediately. She is presently inside at the protest site. There is no restriction on individual entry to Jantar Mantar.”
Maliwal later tweeted in Hindi: “I am sitting with wrestlers who are protesting at Jantar Mantar. They are telling me that last night some police personnel, who were inebriated, misbehaved with them and attacked them. After writing down the complaints, Delhi Commission For Women will act on them.”
AAP MLA Somnath Bharti, detained last night from Jantar Mantar where he had gone to give cots to the wrestlers following rains in the city, was released on Thursday. Bharti was taken to Kapashera Police Station where he was kept for a few hours and later released.
“We have just been released and we will go to Jantar Mantar again. Our sisters and daughters, who have brought laurels to our country all over the world, have been sitting at Jantar Mantar for the last 10 days. How can we sit at home?” he said.
