Official, contractor allege locked up at Minister's house, Minister denies charge

A private contractor and a CPWD official alleged that they were locked up inside the house of Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel on Saturday over a delay in work, police said. Patel denied the allegation.

According to police, the incident occurred around 2 p.m. in New Delhi's Pandara Park area.

"We have received a complaint that Central Public Works Department (CPWD) Junior Engineer Dharamveer and private contractor Narendra Gupta were held captive by the husband of Anupriya Patel, Ashish Singh in a room for over one hour citing delay in some construction work at their flat," a senior police officer told IANS.

"We will investigate the matter," the officer added.

Meanwhile, Patel denied the allegations and alleged that the contractor had a mala fide agenda.

"No one held them captive," Patel told reporters.

"The contractor has come here with malign intent. If somebody had held him captive, then he should first approached police instead of calling national media," she said.

"The contractor did this to hide his incompetence as he has not been able to complete the work awarded to him for the last two months," she added.

--IANS

aks/vd