Delhi Police register case against three AAP MLAs

Delhi Police have registered a case against three Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs for allegedly manhandling and abusing a woman in the state assembly premises.
The AAP called the FIR as an act of "vendetta politics".
The three MLAs are Amanatullah Khan (of Okhla), Somnath Bharti (Malviya Nagar) and Jarnail Singh (Tilak Nagar), said Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Jatin Narwal.
They have been accused of assaulting a woman with "an intent to outrage her modesty and using words or gestures to hurt a woman", the police said.
The incident happened on June 28 and after the woman recorded her statement on June 29, the police sought legal opinion on the matter, sources said.

In her statement, the complainant accused the three MLAs of roughing her up and abusing her.

"I had gone to see the proceedings of the House, but could not get a pass for the Visitor's Gallery. While I was standing outside the building, some men, including Khan and Singh, who were a part of a scuffle that was taking place there, came towards me," she claimed in her complaint.
She said they pushed her and shoved her. She was later taken to a room where she was assaulted, threatened and beaten up by Singh and Khan, she said. The duo was later joined by Bharti who abused her, she claimed.

The police said they were scanning CCTV footage from the area to establish the sequence of events.
The AAP dispensation, in its tenure of a little over two years, has had an uneasy relationship with the police, with 15 of its MLAs being arrested for charges ranging from rioting, outraging the modesty of woman and sexual harassment to criminal intimidation and assault.
Bharti, who has been named in the FIR, called it a "transgression of the rights of a legislator".
"This FIR is also wholly unconstitutional, in addition to being completely void of merit," he posted on Twitter.
Bharti also alleged that the complainant was brought in the assembly premises by the leader of the opposition in the legislative assembly, Vijender Gupta.

Calling the "attack" on the complainant "anti-woman", Gupta said his office had facilitated her entry, but it was restricted only to his office and not to the House.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh, however, called the development "vendetta politics".
"This is vendetta politics by the Centre. We are surprised that the police has arrested only 15 of our MLAs (since coming to power)," he said at a press conference here.
AAP Delhi unit spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said the record of the Delhi Police was "very poor" when it came to cases against AAP MLAs.
"The force always faces flak by the judiciary whenever they take such cases to court," he said.

Khan was arrested twice by the Delhi Police last year in two separate cases of molestation and criminal intimidation lodged against him by his sister-in-law and a Jasola resident in September and July respectively.
Bharti was arrested for allegedly assaulting and trying to kill his wife Lipika Mitra in 2015. He was arrested in September last year for allegedly inciting a crowd to damage a fence in AIIMS and of misbehaving with the hospital's security personnel.