Bharti guilty of 'racial prejudice' in raid on African women, judicial inquiry finds

AAP MLA Somnath Bharti arrives for the party office bearers' meeting in New Delhi. The state's ex-Law Minister has been accused of 'racial prejudice' when overseeing a raid on African women during the short-lived AAP administration

The controversial midnight raid at South Delhi's Khirki Extension has finally landed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA and former Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti in the soup.

The judicial inquiry committee set up by Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung has held that Bharti acted illegally while leading a midnight raid targeting women of African descent on January 15-16 this year.



The committee has also recommended that a case under 10 different sections of the IPC be filed against Bharti.



The Justice B.L. Garg Committee has indicted Bharti for the "racial prejudice" against 12 African women and said the police's response to the raid was "adequate and in accordance with law".



The report also stated that Bharti's "conduct was not in accordance with the law and prima facie he violated various provisions of the law while holding the constitutional post of the Law Minister".

The committee's report said Bharti and his supporters "illegally stopped" all vehicles in which they spotted African nationals and "wrongfully detained the Ugandan women".



"The women were detained for no fault of theirs as no drug was found in their possession or in their vehicle during the search.



"It is further clear that a mob led by Bharti forcibly entered one of the houses in Khirki extension.



"They banged the doors and windows of several houses and forcibly entered the rooms of the African women and hurled racist slurs at them, called them prostitutes and assaulted, molested, humiliated them and threatened to kill them," the report read.



"So far as the action of the police is concerned, we find that the police acted on the directions of Bharti by taking the four Ugandan women to AIIMS for a personal and medical search by a woman doctor instead of taking them to the police station," it read.