Delhi court seeks police report on Bharti's midnight raid

A Delhi court on Thursday directed police to file a report on last week's midnight raid allegedly led by Law Minister Somnath Bharti in South Delhi after a second African woman filed a plea seeking registration of FIR.

Metropolitan Magistrate Chetna Singh asked Deputy Commissioner of Police, South, to file the report on the probe carried out by the agency in the incident of January 15-16 in which three other foreign women are also reportedly victims.

"The DCP, South should file the report by January 25," the court said.

The African woman approached the court for lodging of separate FIR in relation to the midnight raid, after another foreign woman last week had sought a similar relief from the court.

Delhi police has already registered a case on January 19 against unknown persons on the first plea.

Three foreign women have till date recorded their statements before a magistrate, in which they have stated that Bharti, the MLA from Malviya Nagar, had barged into their house along with his supporters on the intervening night of January 15-16.

The woman, who has filed the latest application through advocate Rakesh Sherawat, has said the group had forcibly held her hands and took her out of the house along with her sisters who live with her.

"They (the group) continuously abused and misbehaved with her (complainant) and her sisters and directed them to leave India immediately," Sherawat claimed in the court, adding "while watching television she identified those persons who had trespassed, assaulted, misbehaved and molested them on the aforesaid night".

"The complainant came to know through media that the assailants are from Aam Admi Party led by the local MLA of the area," Sherawat said in the court. 

Sherawat told the media outside the court that after the application was filed, the court had sought a report from the police, which in its reply has said that the women are the victims of the incident.

In the earlier application filed before the court, the foreign national had alleged that she and the other women were subjected to a cavity search during their medical examination at AIIMS and that the minister and his people had asked them in public to give urine samples.

On her plea, the court had ordered registration of FIR against unknown persons under sections 451 (house trespass), 427 (mischief), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC.

Television footage on news channels had shown Bharti asking police officers to conduct the raid as he had received complaints of drugs and prostitution racket in that area.