NHRC clarifies on Bharti's midnight raid

National Human Rights Commission today clarified that it has not specifically directed the Delhi Police to take action against former Law Minister Somnath Bharti and had only asked them to take "action as deemed appropriate" in connection with the midnight raid in South Delhi's Khirki Extension area in January.
In a statement released today, the Commission said, "The NHRC has seen the news stories that it has given a direction for taking action against Somnath Bharti in Khirki Extension incident. It is clarified that the Commission has not given any such direction."
The Commission had taken suo moto cognizance of the incident and expected some reports from the concerned authorities in the matter while simultaneously getting the issue investigated by its team, report of which is still awaited, the statement said.

Meanwhile, NHRC also got a complaint from social activist Shehzad Poonawalla in this regard which was forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi with a note reading, "The authority concerned is directed to take appropriate action within eight weeks and to inform the complainant of the action taken in the matter."
An NHRC spokesperson said that we had forwarded the complaint to the concerned authority (Delhi Police) for taking such action as deemed appropriate.
"It is up to police's discretion what action they want to take, we didn't specifically ask them to do anything," he said.

The Commission has received a judicial enquiry report from the concerned authorities in the matter which is also under its consideration."

On January 15 this year, when Bharti was a minister in the AAP government, he had gone to Khirki Extension area in his constituency of Malviya Nagar, claiming a drug and prostitution ring was being run from a residence there and demanded that police raid the place.
However, police had refused saying they have no warrant to do so. AAP workers then allegedly forced a couple of women from Uganda to give urine samples. Their action had come under all-round attack.
An FIR was also registered in this regard after a court order.