Two Delhi ministers turn vigilantes
Less than 24 hours after he led a midnight raid and tried to bully police into arresting some “Nigerians or Ugandans” who he alleged were members of “a prostitution-and-drug ring”, Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti returned to the very spot on Thursday and asked residents to draw up a list of houses where “such people” live and said he would personally check each one.
The police, he said, would also be told to do the same. Elsewhere in the capital, his colleague and Women and Child Welfare Minister Rakhi Birla tried to force the police to arrest suspects involved in setting a woman ablaze last week.
Birla claimed the police refused to break down the locked door of a suspect’s house.
On Wednesday, hours after AAP leader and Delhi minister Manish Sisodia warned of the possibility of “political goondaism”, Bharti, accompanied by television crews and AAP volunteers, landed in Khirki Extension — a part of his Malviya Nagar constituency in south Delhi — saying he had received “information” on a prostitution-and-drug ring. He demanded police conduct medical tests on foreign nationals and even search a house, without a warrant, which some locals believed was a den of vice. He rebuked a police officer for refusing to act without following due process.
Meanwhile crackpot AK justifies vigilantism
Rape tendencies start from drug, sex rackets: says Delhi CM Kejriwal
"Rape tendencies start from drug and sex rackets... If people complain about crime should not the police act?" Kejriwal said, adding that "the people in Delhi will not be a mute spectator and the issue will be taken to the Delhi governor." The press briefing was also attended by Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti and Women and Child Welfare Minister Rakhi Birla, who both hit out at the Delhi Police for its inaction on cases raised by them. After reporters questioned the manner in Bharti was caught in a scuffle with the Delhi Police on Wednesday night, Kejriwal said they were right in what they were doing and the police commissioner should sack both the SHOs who were in-charge.