AAP MLA arrested from press meet

Policemen detain AAP MLA Dinesh Mohaniya in New Delhi on Saturday for allegedly misbehaving with a group of women. (Photo: Bunny Smith)

The Aam Aadmi Party’s MLA from Sangam Vihar, Dinesh Mohaniya, who is also the Delhi Jal Board vice-chairman, was dragged out of a “press conference” he was addressing on Saturday and arrested by the Delhi police on charges of alleged molestation and sexual harassment.

Mr Mohaniya was dragged from his seat by a police official and put in a police bus when he was talking to reporters at his office in Khanpur, South Delhi, at around 12.10 pm. He kept accusing the Delhi police of a conspiracy against him but the police officials barged into his office, grabbed his arms and took him away. He was taken to Neb Sarai police station in the police bus.

“Mohaniya has been arrested under IPC Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 354 (assault or criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354 A (sexual harassment), 354 B (assault or use of criminal force against a woman with intent to disrobe) and 354 C (voyeurism),” said joint commissioner of police (southeast) R.P Upadhyay.

Mr Mohaniya was booked on June 23 after some Sangam Vihar residents alleged that the MLA and his supporters had roughed them up and misbehaved with women in his office when they went to complain about irregular water supply. The complainants recorded their statements before a metropolitan magistrate on Friday after which the police added the non-bailable IPC Sections 354, 354(A), 354 (b) and 354(C) against the MLA. The police had gone to his house at 2 am on Saturday to serve him notice but he was not present at home and the occupants of his house did not accept the notice. “We had to pick him up in the middle of the press conference as he was avoiding our notices, served to him to cooperate in our investigation in the cases registered against him. We reached his home to serve him notice at 2 am but he was not present there and our notice was not accepted,” said the source.

Mr Mohaniya is the eighth AAP MLA to be arrested by the Delhi police since the party came to power for the second time in Delhi in February 2015.

The police registered another case against Mr Mohaniya, the second in one week, for allegedly slapping a 60-year-old man in southeast Delhi’s Tughlaqabad area.

In his complaint, the 60-year-old man told the police that Mr Mohaniya slapped him and that the MLA’s men thrashed him when he had approached him to complain about a severe water crisis in his locality on Wednesday, the same day that Mr Mohaniya had allegedly misbehaved with a group of women who had approached him regarding the same problem, a senior police official said.

The FIR was registered under IPC Sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt, 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) against Mr Mohaniya and his men at Govindpuri police station, the official said.