CM's own adviser claims CS was assaulted

New Delhi:  In a major embarrassment to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his advisor V. K. Jain has told the police that the AAP MLAs had surrounded and assaulted chief secretary Anshu Prakash at the CM’s residence. In his statement to the police, the officer has said that he himself had seen the CS lying on the ground.  Jain, the advisor to the chief minister, has told the Delhi police that he saw Aam Aadmi Party MLAs, Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal, surrounding and thrashing the chief secretary on Monday night. The Delhi police picked up Jain on Wednesday morning from his residence at Maharani Bagh in connection with the case. 

Mr Jain’s statement before police contradicts the official statement of the Aam Aadmi Party, which called the alleged assault on the Delhi bureaucrat a lie and a “conspiracy”.

A Delhi court on Thursday sent the Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan and Deoli MLA Prakash Jarwal to judicial custody for 14 days. Metropolitan magistrate Shefali Barnala Tandon said that orders on the bail pleas of AAP MLAs and also on their police custody would be pronounced on Friday.

On Wednesday, Tandon had refused a Delhi police plea for police custody of the MLAs and sent them to judicial custody till Thursday. The chief secretary alleged that he was beaten up by the two MLAs in the presence of Kejriwal at his residence on Monday night, where he had been called for a meeting.

While Jarwal was arrested on Tuesday night, Khan surrendered at a police station on Wednesday afternoon. The ruling AAP had tried to give the arrest a communal colour, saying its two MLAs were arrested in the case without any inquiry because they belonged to the dalit and Muslim community, respectively.

The police on the other hand moved a fresh application in court seeking custodial interrogation of the MLAs. 

According to the police, there have been as many as eight cases registered against Khan, while over five cases are against Jarwal.

Meanwhile, the AAP on Thursday alleged that the Delhi police pressured chief minister Kejriwal’s adviser Jain to change his statement about the alleged attack.

Senior AAP leaders Ashutosh and Sanjay Singh claimed that this was a ploy to destabilise the party's government in Delhi.