New Delhi: Arvind Kejriwal's Law Minister
Somnath Bharti, who led a controversial midnight raid targeting Ugandan women on suspicion of a drug and sex racket, should be suspended in the interest of fair play, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member GR Gopinath has said.
Captain Gopinath has said if the policemen who have been accused by the AAP minister of refusing to help with his raid and ignoring evidence are suspended, so should Mr Bharti.
"There is a case for suspending the police personnel because they interfered with the evidence, there is a similar case for Somnath Bharti for interfering with witnesses there... To be fair and to be just is the job of the Chief Minister. They both should have been suspended on my opinion," he said on NDTV's The Buck Stops Here last night. (
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Captain Gopinath, pioneer of the low cost airline business in India, joined the AAP earlier this month.
Mr Bharti has also been criticised by senior AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, who admitted that they were not comfortable with his language and his conduct was open to debate.
On Tuesday, Mr Kejriwal called off a protest in the heart of Delhi after Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung promised to expedite an investigation against five police officers who had refused to make a series of arrests ordered by Mr Bharti and another AAP minister Rakhi Birla, who alleged they were fighting for women's safety. Two of those police officers have been forced to go on leave as part of the compromise offered to Mr Kejriwal. (
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One of the Ugandan women allegedly targeted in the minister's raid says she has, in a statement recorded by a magistrate, identified the Law Minister as the man who led a group of people who forcibly entered her house and attacked her.