May 13 (Punjab Khabarnama) : The Delhi Police on Monday received two calls from chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence, claiming Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal was assaulted there, people aware of the matter said.
The people said Maliwal, who was out of the country for weeks and was largely absent during the chief minister’s internment in the excise police case, was at the residence to meet Kejriwal but his personal assistant Bibhav Kumar prevented her from doing so. HT reached out to Maliwal, a former chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, for comments but she repeatedly disconnected the calls made.
An officer with the operations cell of the Delhi Police said that two calls were received regarding the alleged incident. “In the first call to 100 [emergency response number] made at around 9.40 am, the caller did not mention her name. But in the second call at around 9.54am…the caller told the police that her name is Swati Maliwal and Delhi chief minister’s aide Bibhav Kumar is manhandling her,” said the officer, asking not to be named.
Police said three vans were rushed “to the alleged place of occurrence”, where nothing could be found.
Maliwal separately arrived at the Civil Lines Police Station but soon left without lodging any complaint, a second police officer said, asking not to be named. It was not immediately clear why she did so.
Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor sought clarification from the office of the chief minister, who is on interim bail until June 1, to prevent rumours about the purported incident. He cited unnamed sources and claimed there was “a clash between an aide of the chief minister and a senior woman leader” at Kejriwal’s residence around 9.15am on Monday. He added a police call was also made.
Kapoor said that a former women’s panel chief is not safe at the chief minister’s house while calling it a serious matter. He asked the chief minister to respond.