Somnath Bharti`s midnight raid: African woman forced to urinate in public

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government is facing huge criticism over its Cabinet Minister Somnath Bharti`s conduct for mounting a vigilante-style raid on African residents here in the national capital. Eminent lawyer Harish Salve on Friday told a TV news channel that an African woman was allegedly forced to give a urinary sample in public for a drug test during Delhi law minister`s raid in a south Delhi locality he claimed had a “drug and prostitution” racket. A group of young Africans on Friday found themselves in the middle of a political and media furore in Delhi with the greenhorn minister in the new state government accusing them of being part of a "prostitution and drug racket" and demanding their arrest. The women, mostly Ugandans and Nigerians, said they were assaulted by "people not in uniform" while a member of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) charged the minister with making "racist remarks" against the Africans. One of the women, who called herself Sandra, a student, narrated the Thursday night incident: "We were in our house when suddenly we heard people shouting outside. "When we peeped out, we saw a huge crowd. We got scared and locked ourselves inside," Sandra, 24, pursuing a course from the Indira Gandhi National Open University, added. Her friend, Selvia, 23, who has come for medical treatment, said: "They hurled abuses and insulted us." Both of them said the police came and told them to come out of their rooms. "We were taken to the hospital and later allowed to return home," Sandra said. "We thought the crowd will kill us. We were very scared," she added.= Bharti has accused Delhi Police of not acting against a sex and drug racket despite repeated complaints while Birla alleged that police were refusing to arrest a family which had set their daughter-in-law on fire. Kejriwal yesterday asked Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to suspend four police officials for allegedly not conducting a raid without warrant ordered by Bharti. According to news report, Kejriwal has now set a deadline and have said if no action is being taken against the said personnel till Monday, 10 am, all AAP ministers will sit on a `dharna` outside the Home Ministry. Speaking exclusively to Zee Media, BJP leader Dr Harsh Vardhan said the Delhi Law Minister should resign or else Kejriwal should sack him. The BJP leader said that the newly elected Law Minister `s conduct has been continuously inappropriate – the incidents like the way he convened a meeting of all judges of Delhi courts and his name cropping up in a corruption case in which Bharti unduly influenced a government witness. A media report on Tuesday said Bharti, then an advocate, had been pulled up by special Central Bureau of Investigation court judge Poonam A Bamba last August along with his client Pawan Kumar, who was facing charges of corruption, for influencing the prosecution witness by speaking to him on the phone and discussing the case.