NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police today arrested Aam Aadmi Party legislator Mr. Somnath Bharti after he allegedly assaulted a security staff at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences earlier this month. The Chief Security Officer of AIIMS filed a complaint on September 9 following which a case was registered under sections of rioting, damaging public property and obstructing a public servant from discharging his duty. Bharti was arrested from his office in south Delhi’s Green Park. He will be produced in the court later today. The police is likely to seek a day’s custody to question him, sources Said. Mr. Bharti is the second AAP leader to be arrested in two days. MLA Amanatullah Khan was arrested on Wednesday afternoon on charges of sexual harassment. Mr Bharti was accused by AIIMS Chief Security Officer of trying to encroach on government land and disrupting peace in the hospital. The officer said the MLA and about 300 of his supporters beat up security personnel who had asked them to leave the hospital premises. He alleged that the Malviya Nagar MLA, in whose constituency the part of the hospital is located, insisted that the area was ‘public property’ and a fence must be demolished. The MLA did not have any order from a competent authority to stall the work but allegedly went ahead with the demolition forcefully, the complainant said. The complaint read, “Around 9:45am, Somnath Bharti along with 300 of his supporters assembled in Gautam Nagar near Nallah Road and started breaking the fence on the boundary wall with the help of a JCB machine in order to provide unauthorized people access AIIMS. They were claiming that the road belonged to the public”. “They were requested to produce the orders of the competent authority in this regard, but they could not. They were also not accompanied by any government official. They damaged the fence on the boundary wall and when I objected to it, they started shouting at me and misbehaving with the security personnel,” he said in the complaint. Mr. Bharti in his defence posted a letter from the chief engineer (south), PWD, to the AIIMS director stating that the road leading to the Gautam Nagar nullah was a public property and had to be opened for general public use. ]]>
