Amanatullah Khan, the MLA for Okhla, was conspicuously absent from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s first meeting with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs following the Supreme Court’s interim bail approval. There are claims against Mr. Khan and his son Anas Ahmed that they threatened and physically attacked employees at a fuel pump in Noida Sector 95. Authorities have asserted that Mr. Khan and Anas are “underground”.
An FIR has been registered against the two under charges of assault and criminal intimidation, Noida police officers have said. The cops said a police team visited the MLA’s residence to serve him a notice, but he was not found there. The officers have said Khan and his son were not cooperating in the investigation. Their phones are also switched off, according to the officers in Noida police.
According to the police, a fuel pump employee’s complaint led to the filing of the FIR. Anas allegedly skipped the line when he went to the gas pump to refuel. In the FIR, Anas was listed as “unidentified”. He allegedly attacked the salesperson and demanded that his car be refueled first. The Phase 1 police station has received a formal complaint against Mr. Khan, Anas, and a few other unidentified individuals, according to senior police officer Manish Kumar Mishra.
The AAP MLA told news agency PTI that his son, a student of law, was on his way to take an exam when the incident happened. “The staff of the petrol pump misbehaved with my son and also manhandled him. Now, they are using incomplete CCTV footage to malign my image and frame me in a one-sided police action,” he alleged.
Mr Khan has also said that after he received a call from local police, he reached the petrol pump, spoke to its owner and “settled” the matter. But later he learnt that he was “implicated” in the case by the police, he said.
Vinod Kumar Singh, the complainant, has alleged that Anas arrived there in his car and asked the salesman to refuel his car first. “He then started beating the salesman and threatened that he was the MLA’s son. He took out an iron rod from the car and started hitting around. He also broke the card machine,” the FIR says.
“To protect the salesman, other petrol pump employees got involved in the scuffle. The police were called in. But he fled the spot,” it stated.
The complaint adds that Anas returned later to the fuel pump and threatened to thrash all the employees there. “He then called his father who arrived there in a convoy of two cars and threatened the pump manager by saying that he (manager) would not be able to do anything if he (Khan) starts beating him and the workers. The MLA then spoke to the pump owner over the phone and told him that this pump falls in our area and if you are here to do business, then do it,” the complainant alleged.
A formal complaint has been filed under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code, encompassing offenses such as malicious intimidation, mischief, and intentionally causing harm.
Mr. Khan, an Okhla MLA for two terms, was labeled a “bad character” by Delhi Police in the previous year.
Following his arrest on March 21, the chief minister of Delhi informed AAP MLAs that the BJP had attempted to overthrow the party’s governments in both Delhi and Punjab, but the plan had failed.
The AAP, he said, had become more united after his arrest. “They had a plan that they will arrest me, break the party, topple the government in Delhi and then in Punjab also. After arrest, their plan failed. You all did not break,” he told the MLAs.
The AAP national convener was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi liquor policy. The Supreme Court Friday granted him interim bail so that he can campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. He has to surrender on June 2, a day after the last round of polling in the seven-phase election.
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