Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has called for a fair investigation into the alleged assault of AAP MP Swati Maliwal, while asserting the need for justice as the incident presents conflicting accounts.
Maliwal claims she was assaulted by Kejriwal’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar during a meeting at the chief minister’s official residence on May 13. Kumar has been arrested in connection with the incident, and police are investigating the matter. Kumar is currently in police custody for five days as part of the investigation.
In an interview with PTI, Kejriwal said that the matter is “sub-judice” and his comment might affect the proceedings.
He said, “There are two versions of the event. Police should investigate both versions fairly and justice should be done.”
Soon after Kejriwal’s comments, Maliwal in a post on X said, “After unleashing the entire army of leaders and volunteers at me, calling me a BJP agent, assassinating my character, leaking edited videos, victim shaming me, roaming around with the accused, letting him re enter the crime scene and tamper evidences and protesting in favour of the accused, the Chief Minister, in whose drawing room I was beaten up, has finally said that he wants free and fair investigation in the matter.”
“Irony died a thousand deaths. I don’t buy this one bit,” she added.
Earlier Wednesday, Maliwal alleged that there is a “lot of pressure” on everyone in the party to malign her.
“Yesterday I got a call from a big leader of the party. They told me how there is a lot of pressure on everyone, they have to say bad things against Swati, they have to break her by leaking her personal photos. It is being said that anyone who supports her will be expelled from the party,” the Rajya Sabha MP said in a post on X.
“Someone has got the duty of doing press conference and someone has got the duty of tweeting. It is someone’s duty to call the volunteers sitting in America and get something out against me,” she added.
Delhi Police had taken Kumar to Mumbai on Tuesday for the discovery of data from his phone which he had allegedly formatted before his arrest. It is suspected. Meanwhile, Kumar’s phone and laptop, along with CCTV recordings from Kejriwal’s residence, have been sent for forensic examination.