42-year-old woman lodges complaint against Deoli legislator

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Deoli Prakash Jarwal has been booked for allegedly assaulting and threatening a 42-year-old woman at her home in south-east Delhi’s Tigri, the police said on Friday.

A case has been registered at Sangam Vihar police station.

This is the second such case against Mr. Jarwal.

In June last year, he was charged with molestation, eve-teasing and criminal intimidation after a woman accused him of touching her inappropriately when she went to lodge a complaint regarding water problems at the Delhi Jal Board office in Greater Kailash.

In the latest case, the woman alleged that the MLA, along with 40-50 people, entered her house and assaulted her on July 14. “People had gathered to demolish a bakery near my house. That’s when Mr. Jarwal and others came to my house. They grabbed my dupatta, abused me and threatened to harm my boy,” she said, adding that both her husband and her 19-year-old son were in the house at the time.

The woman added that the MLA also threatened to get her husband, a DJB worker, fired. The victim told reporters that the MLA had been holding a grudge against them ever since the municipal polls, when candidates of all parties were campaigning. “When the BJP member had come, my son had danced with her and since then they [the AAP MLA and others] have been holding a grudge,” she claimed.

The woman further alleged that she was threatened by a man on July 18 to take back her complaint. “I had given the complaint on July 18 but the FIR was registered on July 19. A man came to our house and asked me to take the complaint back or they would harm my son,” she said.

Scared for her family, the woman said she hadn’t “been able to cook or concentrate on anything” ever since.

‘Woman a BJP worker’

The police have registered a case under Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the IPC.

The AAP, meanwhile, called the case a witch-hunt by the Centre and said that the woman was a BJP worker.

The party’s chief spokesperson, Saurabh Bharadwaj, said women safety laws shouldn’t be used “mindlessly to gain political mileage”.

He added that the woman has had altercations with AAP party workers in the past. An AAP worker, Jyoti Koli, had filed a complaint against the woman for physically assaulting her during the campaign for civic elections.

Meanwhile, the BJP criticised Mr. Jarwal for his alleged actions. Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should act on the situation if he has any “morality or respect for women”.