It`s not just Somnath Bharti, but Delhi Police also looking for his dog

New Delhi: The Delhi Police is looking for 'Don'! No, not an underworld don but a dog!

Don, a Labrador, has become crucial to the police's investigation in the domestic violence case filed by former Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti's wife Lipika Mitra.

The police consider the dog so curical to the case that they have even sought its custody from the court. However, the dog remains missing and the police have stressed that they “need to recover him”.

The police told a Delhi court on Monday, while opposing the anticipatory bail plea of Bharti, that Don was an important character in the probe as it is alleged to have bitten a pregnant Lipika at the behest of his Bharti.

“He (the dog) has been missing since the complaint has been filed. He is very crucial to the investigation. We have conducted searches at Bharti’s residence and at his office. However, we have not able to find him (Don). We have to recover him. Bharti knows where he is. The dog’s denture marks will prove how the accused incited the dog to attack the victim when she was pregnant,” special public prosecutor Shailender Babbar argued in the court yesterday, as per The Indian Express.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Garg accepted the prosecution argument and said: “A perusal of the FIR shows that the complainant has narrated specific incidents of cruelty against the applicant… as per the complaint, when she asked the applicant to pay rent, he not only tried to strangulate her but also unleashed his dog on her despite knowing that she was in the seventh month of her pregnancy. The dog had bitten the complainant at multiple places on her stomach and private parts.”

“Considering the allegation, the contention of (Bharti’s) counsel that the commission of offence under 307 (attempt to murder) IPC is not made out cannot be accepted at this stage… the applicant is not entitled to grant of anticipatory bail,” the judge stated.