NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday alleged that the CBI was ‘mentally torturing’ Manish Sisodia, who was arrested by the probe agency a few days ago and is currently in its custody. The party claimed that in the trial court on Saturday, Sisodia had indicated that he was being tortured in custody and the court had also taken cognisance of the matter.
The AAP alleged that the CBI was pressuring Sisodia to accept all the allegations against him and sign a ‘false confession’. Speaking at a press conference, AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said that despite cooperating with the investigation, Sisodia was being subjected to ‘mental torture’ by the probe agency.
“The CBI does not have any evidence or documentary evidence to prove that Sisodia has embezzled even a rupee. Because of the lack of evidence with the CBI, their whole game is now to get him to admit to all the baseless allegations through torture and to get him to sign a false confession in one way or another. It is unfortunate that a person who had worked tirelessly for the education of poor children was being subjected to such persecution,” he said.
The AAP leader further said, “For the last decade, I have been hearing that the BJP says that they will put Rahul Gandhi in jail. They said Robert Vadra has done land embezzlement in Haryana, Rajasthan. But no one was put in jail. There is only a war of words between Congress and the BJP. They are fooling the whole country by fighting with each other. Today Congress is missing when the Opposition is uniting. Another AAP spokesperson Atishi, in a separate press conference, too questioned the CBI and ED. She said that despite thousands of hours of investigation, full-time involvement of over 500 officers, thousands of pages of charge sheets, and over 50 hours of raids, the probe agencies have not been able to prove the corruption of ‘even one rupee’ against the AAP leader.
Reacting to the AAP leaders’ statements, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that the arrest of former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia had left the entire Aam Aadmi Party panic-stricken, which is why three to four leaders hold press conferences and demonstrations on Sisodia’s arrest every day, and even on Sunday, MP Sanjay Singh and MLAs Saurabh Bhardwaj and Atishi had held press conferences.
Meanwhile, in a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi-led Central government, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday alleged that the ED and CBI have been overthrowing Opposition governments by using these agencies. He shared how nine major Opposition leaders have written to the PM against the misuse of ED-CBI.
“Once a non-BJP government takes power, ED and CBI are left behind Opposition leaders. They overthrow governments, cause rifts in parties, and harass leaders,” he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party national convener alleged that once such ‘tainted’ leaders join the BJP by betraying their own parties, they are absolved of all charges. Kejriwal claimed that in the early days of cases being filed against Satyendar Jain and Manish Sisodia, both the AAP leaders were given offers to switch sides.
FIR for school posters in support of Sisodia
A case was registered against a Delhi School Management Committee coordinator for allegedly putting up posters in a school in support of former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. A senior cop said that the FIR was registered under Section 3 of the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Public Property Act at Shastri Park police station. The Delhi BJP has accused the AAP of using school children for political purposes.