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The Lucknow realtor blamed the media for showing only one side of the story and insisted that people should see the hotel’s closed circuit television camera, or CCTV, footage also.

“It will show that he (complainant) had threatened me,” he said, suggesting that he had been targeted because his father and brother were in politics. “It is not a crime to be son, or brother of a politician,” Pandey said.

But Ashish Pandey isn’t the only one involved in the case from a political background.

Gaurav Singh, who was seen to be on the receiving end in the video, is the son of Kanwar Karan Singh, a three-time former Congress legislator from Delhi’s Model Town.

Gaurav Singh had earlier told HT that he felt so threatened that he decided not to report the matter to the police. “I have never had a gun pointed at me. I did not even know how to react to such a situation,” said Gaurav, a Delhi-based businessman.

Pandey’s father Rakesh Pandey was elected as MP on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket from Ambedkarnagar constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Before joining BSP in 2007, he was a Samajwadi Party MLA.

The accused’s younger brother, Rakesh Tripathi, is a sitting BSP MLA from Jalalpur constituency of Ambedkarnagar.

Pandey and his family members are involved in real estate and liquor business for the past many years.