CM Kejriwal agrees to join CS assault case probe

New Delhi: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has agreed  to join the investigation in the case of alleged assault of chief secretary Anshu Prakash even as he demanded video recording of the proceedings.

In a letter addressed to the station house officer (SHO) of the Civil Lines police station, the chief minister said he would be available at 5 pm on Friday at his camp office. The police had, on Wednesday, sent him a notice to join the investigation on Friday at 11 am.

Mr Kejriwal also demanded that he be allowed to video record the proceedings. “I wish to video record the entire proceedings during the investigation. If you have any objection, I would request you to kindly make arrangements at your end to video record the same and in such case, a copy of the recording be provided after the conclusion of my questioning (sic),” he said in the letter.

A senior officer privy to the probe said a five to six member police team led by additional deputy commissioner of police (North) Harendra Singh will visit the CM office on Friday. “The proceedings will be video recorded, but the chief minister won’t be allowed to video record the investigation. Also, it will be the police’s decision to share the recording with him. The video proceedings of the questioning of AAP MLAs and others in the case were also recorded earlier,” he said.

Mr Prakash was allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Mr Kejriwal’s official residence on February 19. The police has already questioned the 11 AAP MLAs, who were present at the chief minister’s residence during the meeting.

Two MLAs, Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal, were arrested in the case. Mr Kejriwal was also present there along with his former advisor VK Jain and deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

On February 23, a police team had examined the CCTV system installed at the chief minister’s residence in the Civil Lines area and seized the hard disk. The forensic report on the hard disk is still awaited.

The “conspiracy” of assault on Mr Prakash was “hatched” at Mr Kejriwal’s residence, so it was no surprise that he would be questioned by the police, alleged Vijender Gupta, the BJP legislator and Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly.

“The chief minister should cooperate in the investigation instead of indulging in politics over it,” Mr Gupta said. The alleged assault on the chief secretary had triggered a bitter tussle between the Delhi government and its bureaucracy.