Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, while announcing doorstep delivery of ration for Delhi, paid tribute to AAP worker, late Santosh Koli, who died after she was fatally injured in a road accident on 7th August 2013.
He claimed that Koli was repeatedly attacked by goons but she never backed down. However, Koli’s mother has a different story to tell.I wud also like to remember n pay tribute to Late Santosh Koli. When v were fighting the ration mafia in Sundarnagri she was repeatedly attacked by goons. But she never backed down. It is the sacrifice of brave activists like her that led to today's revolutionary reform in ration https://t.co/tSlqFK9AcL
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) July 21, 2020
Who was Santosh Koli
Santosh Koli was one of the first employees of Paritvartan, an NGO started by Arvind Kejriwal back in 2002. He was still a civil servant back then. He also worked with Public Cause Research Foundation, another NGO founded by Kejriwal, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri. She was fatally injured in a road accident on 7th August, 2013. Her family and a lot of AAP members suspect that she might have been murdered.
In 2017, her mother had released a video wherein she could be seen holding placards accusing Kejriwal and other AAP leaders of covering up Koli’s murder as accident.
In the video, her mother says that Santosh “knew” of something (possibly incriminating) about Kejriwal, because of which they were not talking properly.
She further says, in the video, that the day she died, she did not wish to go to office. But, she was forcibly taken to office. That some Vandana and Kuldeep took her to office, not on Santosh’s scooty, but on Kuldeep’s bike. This bike was burnt (in the accident that took Santosh’s life). “Never seen such accident where the bike gets burnt to ashes, driver escapes uninjured and there are no witnesses. Everyone said Santosh was killed. Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai promised probe in the murder. A lot of money was collected in name of Santosh’s treatment (before she died in hospital), but no details are available about where the money went,” she said through the placards.
She further accused that the family has been kept away from the FIR details (filed by former AAP leader Dr. Kumar Vishwas) and even their statement hasn’t been recorded. She shockingly claims that Kejriwal had told her not to take Santosh’s name ever again in front of him. He allegedly even denied any probe into the murder. In fact, she alleges that following Koli’s death, the family was barred from participating in the condolence meets held in her memory. “All doors were closed for us. Today everyone in our family believes she was murdered. We insist that CBI probes Kejriwal’s involvement in her murder,” he mother had said.
