Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is leading his Aam Aadmi Party’s effort to return to power in Delhi, on Wednesday launched a sharp counter-attack at the Bharatiya Janata Party over police claims that the 23-year-old who fired in Shaheen Bagh had joined AAP last year.
“If Kapil Gujjar has any link to the Aam Aadmi Party, he must be given stringent punishment. If the crime is punishable with two years imprisonment, send him to jail for four,” Kejriwal told news agency ANI.
But he insisted this wasn’t the case and held out that the BJP is using Delhi Police against his party. BJP leaders have accused the AAP of “misusing youth for its political selfishness” and “constantly trying to incite violence to get votes” over Shaheen Bagh.
“The BJP has left with nothing. They have nothing to counter the work done by the AAP government in Delhi. All parties came together to beat me… Later, they started saying ‘Kejriwal is a terrorist, thug, Ravan, traitor. All of that too did not work,” Kejriwal said in an interview to ANI.
“So, in the end, they started using the Delhi Police. They accused of us the shooting… Do we have the power to do such a thing (shooting)? Do we do something like this?” he asked.
He also said the shooter’s family has denied they have any links with the AAP.
“Kapil’s family has said they have nothing to do with AAP. Anyone can get their pictures clicked with someone. I say he should get strict punishment. If he has any link with AAP, then he should be given the harshest punishment,” he said.
“Forty-eight hours before the polling, Amit Shah is using the police to indulge in petty conspiracies. The entire country knows they are doing a political stunt,” he said.
The Delhi chief minister was referring to the claim by deputy commissioner of police (crime) Rajesh Deo that Kapil Gujjar and his father, Choudhary Gaje Singh, joined the AAP last year in the presence of the ruling party’s senior leaders.
Deo said that photos retrieved from Gujjar’s cellphone showed him and his father with the AAP leaders. He also said that the two have admitted to being members of the AAP.
The photos, being widely circulated on social media, show Kapil Gujjar with senior AAP leaders like Sanjay Singh and Atishi.
Gujjar’s uncle, however, has refuted the police’s claim and said his nephew doesn’t even have friends associated with the AAP or any other political party.
“I have no idea where these photographs are circulating from. My nephew Kapil had no association with any political party nor does any other member from the family,” Fatesh Singh said, according to news agency PTI.
“My brother, Gaje Singh, (Gujjar’s father) fought assembly elections in 2008 on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket and lost. After that no one from our family had any links with any political party,” he said.
Gujjar was detained by the police on Saturday following the firing incident and booked him for opening fire in the air at Shaheen Bagh, where protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are going on since December last year.
He was sent to two-day police custody on Tuesday.