After police search Kejriwal’s house, he asks why Amit Shah is left untouched

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday attacked BJP President Amit Shah and accused the Centre of using the State police to target him and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The Chief Minister’s comments come after the police searched his residence in connection with an alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash by MLAs of the ruling AAP on February 19.

“ Do thappad ke arop ki janch ke liye CM ke pure ghar ki talashi. Judge Loya ke katl par pooch-taach to banti hai. Nahin? (When a Chief Minister’s house can be raided because of an accusation of two slaps, surely an enquiry is warranted in the murder of Judge Loya),” said Kejriwal on Twitter.

“ Khoob police mere ghar bheji hai. Mere ghar ki chan-been chal rahi hai. Bahut achchi baat hai. Par Judge Loya ke katl ke mamle me Amit Shah se pooch-taach kab hogi? (I have a lot of police in my house. They are searching my house. It’s very good that they are doing that. But I want to know when Amit Shah will be questioned in connection with the murder of Judge Loya),” said Kejriwal in another tweet, referring to reports about the suspicious death of judge BH Loya, who was presiding over the CBI court hearing the Sohrabuddin encounter death case.

The police said it had seized a hard disk of the CCTV camera system installed in Kejriwal’s house because their request for the CCTV footage from the CM’s residence was not met. A total of 21 CCTV cameras and a hard disk were examined by the police. Any possibility of the footage being “tampered” with could be ascertained only through forensic examination, said Additional DCP (North) Harendra Singh.

“We had asked for the CCTV camera footage and hard disk on February 20 itself, but there was no response. So we decided to come down and examine it,” he said.

Singh also said the maintenance in-charge at the CM’s residence had been informed about the police visit. Singh did not deny the possibility of questioning the CM and the MLAs who were present when the Chief Secretary was allegedly assaulted by party legislator Amanatullah Khan and others.

The police have been acting on a complaint by the Chief Secretary alleging that he had been “roughed up” by two AAP MLAs at a midnight meeting in Kejriwal’s residence. Chaos has reigned at the Delhi Secretariat since then, with the bureaucrats and staff refusing to comply with ministers’ orders and wearing black bands as a mark of protest against the assault on the Chief Secretary.

In his complaint, the Chief Secretary said he was assaulted by the MLAs because he had not released some TV advertisements and publicity material. AAP has termed Prakash’s version as “ludicrous” and made a counter-claim that top bureaucrat in Delhi is only heeding the Centre’s diktats and crippling the functioning of a popularly elected government in Delhi. According to AAP, the midnight meeting was not pertaining to publicity for the Delhi Government as claimed by the Chief Secretary (CS) but about provision of rations to the poor.

The AAP MLAs have, in fact, registered counter complaints accusing the Chief Secretary of making “casteist slurs” on them.

AAP leader and spokesman Ashutosh said the CM was being “hounded” because the BJP-ruled Centre is using the police for political ends. “They asked when the house was painted. They went to the roof and searched the lawn. Why this baffling interest in paint?” asked Ashutosh. “You expect such cops to tackle crime?”