NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party legislator Gulab Singh Yadav, who is also in-charge of Gujarat affairs for the party, was arrested from Surat by Delhi police on Sunday in an alleged extortion case registered against him and his aides. Yadav was arrested after a non-bailable warrant was issued from a Delhi court after he failed to join probe into the case.
Furious over this, the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is on Gujarat tour, lashed out at BJP president Amit Shah alleging that he tried to disrupt their party’s Surat programme when AAP is gaining ground in Gujarat. He stated: “Yadav's arrest is intended to put hurdles in the way of the Surat rally. But we are not afraid of it. We have come to know that Amit Shah and BJP are trying to disrupt our rally. But this is not my rally, it's the rally of people of Gujarat. You see 13 MLAs of AAP have been arrested by Delhi Police on the direction from the BJP.”
He further stated that they have gone to Gujarat to clean up politics and to seek support of agitating Patel community.
Explaining about the arrest of Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police Deependra Pathak said that a team of Delhi Police team was in Gujarat looking to arrest the MLA but he was running away. “Our team was in Surat for two days. He was running away and hiding. He was served several notices but he avoided investigation on one or other pretext. The non-bailable warrant was issued against Yadav on October 14 for allegedly not joining probe in the case,” said Pathak from Delhi.
He further stated that the legislator then realized that there was no way out so came to Urma police station in Surat where Delhi police team arrested him. “He will be brought back to Delhi on transit remand to join the probe in the FIR of extortion in which his name is also included,” he said.
The officer also stated that the MLA has been arrested under charge of running an extortion racket as they have concrete evidence against him for his arrest.
“One of the arrested man worked at office of the MLA. His driver who was driving his personal car with sticker of the legislator was arrested later on the night of September 13 in connection with the extortion. The investigation so far reveals that Yadav was kingpin of the entire exercise of extortion and its management,” he said.
But Yadav claimed that he is innocent and the Centre is directing arrest of AAP MLAs as they are not bowing before them.
Last month, two property dealers, Deepak Sharma and Rinku Diwan, had alleged that Satish and Devinder, who work in Gulab Singh's office, and an associate Jagdish were extorting money from them by threatening to get the building from where the property dealers were operating, demolished.
A case under section 384 (punishment for extortion) of Indian Penal Code was registered at Bindapur police station on September 13.