Delhi police should be brought under control of Delhi govt: Kejriwal demands from Home Minister
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party government has on Friday demanded that the Delhi police should be brought under the control of Delhi government after controversy erupted over the non-cooperation of cops with the AAP government.
Delhi CM also warned Sushilkumar Shinde saying 'if the policemen are not suspended, we will protest outside the Home Minister's office'.
The Kejriwal government decided to take up with the Union home minister its demand for the suspension of four police officials for alleged non- cooperation and lapses in duty after the Delhi police chief rejected their call for the said personnel to be penalised.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal along with his cabinet members met Sushilkumar Shinde in the evening.
"Policemen who were allegedly found negligent in their duties should be suspended," Kejriwal told Shinde, sources said.
If cops are not suspended, we will protest outside HM Shinde's office: Kejriwal
With the government going into confrontational mode, Delhi Minister Manish Sisodia said they will 'fix' the police even if the force did not come under their jurisdiction.
"There are rapes happening in the city, sex and drug rackets are being run openly, but police is doing nothing. We will not stay quiet, this isn't the Sheila Dikshit government. We are being accused of vigilantism, but we are a different government."
"This government won't make any excuses like Delhi Police is not under us, they will have to do their duty. Police has to act. We will fix the police even if it doesn't come under us," Sisodia told reporters at the Secretariat.
Read here: AAP mantri tries to raid ‘drug den’
Earlier in the day, Kejriwal and his Cabinet colleagues Rakhi Birla, Somnath Bharti and Manish Sisodia met Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung at his residence where Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi was also present along with the four police officials who are under fire from the AAP ministers.
At the meeting, which lasted for about an hour, Kejriwal and the ministers raised the issue of women's safety in the capital while calling for the suspension of the three SHOs and the ACP for their alleged refusal to cooperate.
The LG ordered a high-level inquiry into the cases but the demand for suspension was refused by Commissioner Bassi. Two Delhi ministers, Bharti and Birla, have accused three police officials of non-cooperation in two separate cases.
Bharti has charged that Malviya Nagar police did not cooperate with him about conducting a raid on Nigerian nationals whom he alleged were involved in a drugs and sex racket at Khirki village. Birla has accused Sagarpur police of shielding the members of a family who allegedly burnt their daughter-in-law over dowry demands.
At a press conference after the meeting, Sisodia said, "We met the LG with three issues, first was the Danish woman rape case, second, the Sagarpur case where a woman was burnt by her in-laws and the third about police officials refusing to conduct a raid on Bharti's tip-off at Khirki Extension.
"The LG has marked a high-level inquiry into the matter, but we demanded that while the inquiry was ongoing, the three SHOs and the ACP should be placed under suspension. This demand was not met and we are now seeing the home minister in the evening," he said.
Kejriwal and his ministers were demanding the suspension of the SHOs of Sagarpur and Malviya Nagar along with ACP Bharat Singh Jakhad for not acting on the complaints of Bharti and Birla. They also called for the suspension of the Paharganj SHO after the Danish woman was allegedly gangraped in his area.
According to sources, Bassi told the AAP ministers that the officers had followed procedures and it was Bharti who had asked them to act against the law by raiding a premise without a warrant and questioning or arresting women after dark.
But at the press conference, Sisodia dismissed that argument saying that although they might have been without a warrant then, police were yet to do anything even after 48 hours.
