Earlier this morning, AAP MLA Somnath Bharti flew into a rage and dished out a death threat to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath after an unidentified person hurled ink at him while he was haranguing police officers who had detained him in a guesthouse.
Bharti had reached the guesthouse last night and was all set to visit government schools in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli when the police officers stopped him moving out. A heated altercation ensued wherein Bharti threatened the police officers of getting them sacked from their jobs.
As Bharti continued badgering the police officers to let him visit the government schools, an unknown man hurled ink at the AAP leader and managed to escape away. The incident raised Somnath’s hackles and he resorted to issuing threats to UP CM Yogi Adityanath.
“Nothing is going to happen from this. Yogi Adityanath’s death is assured. You have helped the attacker escape. You need to understand this. Tell Yogi Adityanath he would not achieve anything from such attacks,” said Somnath Bharti while giving a mouthful to police officers.
Apparently, Bharti, along with senior AAP leaders such as Arvind Kejriwal and Sanjay Singh, alleged that the attack was carried out at the behest of UP CM Yogi Adityanath, who was afraid of the AAP MLA’s visit to the government schools that would ‘expose’ to halt the AAP MLA from ‘exposing’ the state of government schools in Uttar Pradesh.
Bharti was sent to judicial custody for 14 days after he was seen misbehaving with on-duty police officers and issuing death threats to UP CM Yogi Adityanath.
Nevertheless, this is not the first time that AAP leader Somnath Bharti has embroiled himself in an avoidable controversy. There have been several incidents in the past when the Malviya Nagar MLA has got himself in hot water and embarrassed himself and his party.
Bharti and his dog accused of domestic violence by wife Lipika
The former Law Minister of Delhi, Somnath Bharti and his pet dog ‘Don’ were accused of domestic violence by his wife Lipika in 2015. She had then alleged that Somnath Bharti had unleashed dogs on her when she was pregnant and inflicted on her grave mental and physical torture. Lipika had alleged that Don had bitten her on the directions of her husband Somnath Bharti.
Additionally, she had also alleged in her complaint to the Delhi Women Commission that Bharti had forced her to go for abortion when she had become pregnant for the third time and she had once tried to give up her life by slitting her wrist to end the ceaseless torture meted out by Bharti on her.
In her complaint, Lipika had levelled serious charges against Somnath Bharti, accusing him of domestic violence, mental torture, dowry and forgery against him. The couple had reportedly met on Shaadi.com and Bharti had allegedly lied to her that he owned an international law firm, the complaint mentioned.
After a complaint was lodged, Somnath Bharti and his pet dog ‘Don’ was summoned to appear before the police at Dwarka North police station.
#WATCH Somnath Bharti’s dog Don, summoned with Bharti in the domestic violence case to Dwarka North police stationhttps://t.co/4VwGIZrg6u
— ANI (@ANI) December 10, 2015
However, a city court gave Don a clean chit the same year, stating that the allegation of the canine biting Lipika was unfounded.
Khirki extension raid: Court orders framing of molestation charges against Somnath Bharti
In July 2018, a Delhi court ordered framing of charges against former Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti in connection with his alleged involvement in the 2014 midnight raid at Khirki Extension in New Delhi.
The charges were framed for the offences of molestation, assault, threat, promoting enmity, rioting and others under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The charges under sections 147/149 (rioting), 354 (molestation), 354C (voyeurism), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506 (criminal intimidation), 143 (unlawful assembly), 509 (outraging a woman’s modesty), 153A (promoting enmity between two groups or religions), 323 (assault), 452 (house trespass), 427 (criminal trespass) and 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) of the IPC were framed against the accused.
An FIR was lodged in the case on court’s direction after one of the victims of the assault, a Ugandan woman, had filed a plea on January 18, 2014. She had sought lodging of a criminal case against unknown persons in the incident.
On the intervening night of 15-16 January 2014, a mob allegedly led by AAP leader Somnath Bharti and 16 others reached Khirki Extension, Malviya Nagar and purportedly assaulted Ugandan women living in rented accommodation there.
Somnath Bharti asks a woman journalist to become a prostitute
In addition to the aforementioned incidents, Somnath Bharti was also involved in one more incident where he shunned his moral propriety and asked a woman journalist to become a prostitute.
In November 2018, while interacting with a female journalist Ranjana from Sudarshan News, Bharti lost his cool. He asked her to ‘stop doing bh*dwagiri’ followed by directing her to become a prostitute.
Somnath Bharti was speaking on the incident where a man allegedly threw red chilli powder on Delhi chief Arvind Kejriwal. He got personal with the journalist, following which he threatened that the channel will close down after 2019, “yeh bh*dwagiri chalegi nahin, 2019 ka intezar kar lo.”
When the journalist reminded him to maintain dignity while speaking, he accused the journalist of misbehaving on camera. When the journalist asked him to apologise, he accused her of acting like a middleman for the BJP. He then asked her to stop doing the ‘bh*dwagiri’ and ‘dh*ndhe pe baith jao‘, which in crude Hindi is akin to asking her to become a prostitute.
