In Arvind Kejriwal's Meeting With AAP Legislators, A Key MLA Missing

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting with MLAs of Aam Aadmi Party today. PTI

New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s first meeting with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs after the Supreme Court granted him interim bail had a notable absence — Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan. Mr Khan and his son Anas Ahmed are facing allegations of assaulting and threatening staff at a fuel pump in Noida Sector 95. Cops have claimed that Mr Khan and Anas are “underground”.

An FIR has been registered against the two under charges of assault and criminal intimidation, Noida police officers have said. The cops said a police team visited the MLA’s residence to serve him a notice, but he was not found there. The officers have said Khan and his son were not cooperating in the investigation. Their phones are also switched off, according to the officers in Noida police.

The FIR, police said, was registered on a complaint by a fuel pump employee. The complainant has alleged that Anas visited the pump to refuel but jumped the queue. Anas was mentioned as “unidentified” in the FIR. He allegedly insisted that his car should be refuelled first and assaulted the salesperson. Senior police officer Manish Kumar Mishra said the FIR has been registered at Phase 1 police station against Mr Khan, Anas and some unidentified persons.

The AAP MLA told news agency PTI that his son, a student of law, was on his way to take an exam when the incident happened. “The staff of the petrol pump misbehaved with my son and also manhandled him. Now, they are using incomplete CCTV footage to malign my image and frame me in a one-sided police action,” he alleged.

Mr Khan has also said that after he received a call from local police, he reached the petrol pump, spoke to its owner and “settled” the matter. But later he learnt that he was “implicated” in the case by the police, he said.

Vinod Kumar Singh, the complainant, has alleged that Anas arrived there in his car and asked the salesman to refuel his car first. “He then started beating the salesman and threatened that he was the MLA’s son. He took out an iron rod from the car and started hitting around. He also broke the card machine,” the FIR says.

“To protect the salesman, other petrol pump employees got involved in the scuffle. The police were called in. But he fled the spot,” it stated.

The complaint adds that Anas returned later to the fuel pump and threatened to thrash all the employees there. “He then called his father who arrived there in a convoy of two cars and threatened the pump manager by saying that he (manager) would not be able to do anything if he (Khan) starts beating him and the workers. The MLA then spoke to the pump owner over the phone and told him that this pump falls in our area and if you are here to do business, then do it,” the complainant alleged.

The FIR has been registered under several Indian Penal Code sections, including those related to voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and mischief.

A two-time MLA from Okhla, Mr Khan was declared a ‘bad character’ by Delhi Police last year. 

The Delhi Chief Minister, meanwhile, told AAP MLAs that the BJP wanted to topple the party’s governments in Delhi and Punjab after his arrest on March 21, but the plan did not work.

The AAP, he said, had become more united after his arrest. “They had a plan that they will arrest me, break the party, topple the government in Delhi and then in Punjab also. After arrest, their plan failed. You all did not break,” he told the MLAs.

The AAP national convener was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi liquor policy. The Supreme Court Friday granted him interim bail so that he can campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. He has to surrender on June 2, a day after the last round of polling in the seven-phase election.