NEW DELHI: The Congress headquarters here witnessed high drama on Wednesday as the party continued its protest over the questioning of its leader Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald case for the third consecutive day.
Party leaders alleged that Delhi Police personnel forcibly entered its headquarters at Akbar Road and thrashed them, posting a video of the incident on Twitter to substantiate their claims. However, the police denied their allegations.
“In an act of absolute goondaism perpetuated by the Delhi Police at the instance of the Modi government, the police today forcibly entered the national headquarters of the Congress here and beat up party workers and leaders. This is patently criminal trespass,” Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.
Other senior leaders alleged that security personnel misbehaved with women parliamentarians and treated them like ‘criminals’. Jothimani Sennimalai, Tamil Nadu MP, released a video in which she appealed to the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to initiate action against the security personnel who mistreated women MPs. “We were brutally beaten up and assaulted on Tuesday and today as well.
Our clothes were torn and shoes were removed. They are taking us to an unknown location. We needed water but the police didn’t allow us to purchase water. The security personnel bundled 7-8 women in the bus and treated them like criminals,” she alleged. Detained party leaders and functionaries such as Sachin Pilot, Amrita Dhawan, Ajay Yadav, Vivek Bansal, Lalji Desai and Srinivas B V were taken to different police stations in Alipur, Narela, Vasant Kunj, Najafgarh, and Burari.
The Congress demanded that an FIR for criminal trespass be filed, erring police personnel suspended and disciplinary action initiated against them. However, the police rejected the charges. “The allegations are totally false and we strongly denied them,” a senior police officer said.