Please help, I'm like your son: Bharti told Jung

Much before an arrest warrant was issued against Malviya Nagar legislator Somnath Bharti this week, the former law minister had written to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung invoking their father-son like relation to help stop his alleged harassment by police in criminal cases.

Bharti’s latest brush with law enforcers is linked to his matrimonial discord with his wife Lipika Mitra but the controversial lawyer is also grappling with the penal prosecution related to his previous infamous “raid” on the homes of women from African nations in South Delhi’s Khirki Extension area in January 2014.

In a letter written to Jung last month, Bharti said he expected Jung to help him and not give the formal nod for his prosecution based on allegedly twisted facts about the incident.
“In view of the fatherly love you had showered on me during my illness in the month of February 2015, when I was admitted in AIIMS, and I concluded that either the fatherly love you showered then was fake or you allowed yourself to get manipulated at the hands of my political enemies,” said Bharti, claiming innocence.

“I am not willing to accept the first, and considering the second reason to be true, I feel duty bound to apprise you with the facts, narrated hereinafter, after knowing which, not only you will reverse your decision, you will surely direct prosecution of all those who didn’t allow the true facts to surface before you…,” said Bharti.

The legislator also slammed the officials who sought Jung’s permission to prosecute him over the raid. Bharti wrote in his August 18 letter that the police officials “maliciously designed a plot to prosecute the very people who at the cost of their lives tried to expose the drug peddlers and human traffickers – a fact admitted by one and all except the ones who, directly or indirectly, were either partners in this heinous business or drawing illegal benefits.”

On the intervening night of January 15-16, 2014, Bharti and his supporters had allegedly forcibly detained and threatened some African women during a confrontation with police in his Malviya Nagar constituency over inaction against a suspected drug and prostitution racket.

In its chargesheet filed in September last year, police said that “nine African women were victims of molestation and manhandling by a mob led by Bharti” in the Khirki Extension area.

Bharti urged the LG to reconsider his decision to allow the legislator’s prosecution in the case and said: “Since in this case, police itself is in dock, no investigation by the police can be termed unbiased and the investigation should be done by an agency other than Delhi Police.”

“Surprisingly and shockingly, I was never asked to provide any evidence or statement on the case which was deliberate and this itself is good enough a reason for you to reject/dismiss the sanction request and order further investigation,” wrote Bharti.
The controversial AAP legislator also targeted a woman who has been cited as an independent public witness by Delhi Police.

Naming the witness, Bharti said she “is not only alleged by the residents to be a pimp and a partner in the crime of drugs and prostitution but is a local leader of BJP too. A poster to this effect was found pasted in the colony a few days after the incident”.