Chief Secretary assault case: Sisodia asked to join probe

Police tell Deputy CM to be available for questioning tomorrow at 11 a.m.

The Delhi Police on Wednesday sent a notice to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia asking him to join the investigation into the alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash in February.

Mr. Sisodia is likely to be questioned on Friday at 11 a.m. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Harendra Singh, who is heading the investigation, said a notice was sent to Mr. Sisodia on Wednesday afternoon.

“He received the notice himself. He is required to attend investigation at his residence at 11 a.m. on Friday,” he said. Mr. Singh, however, said the Deputy CM has not yet confirmed whether he would be present.

The development comes just days after a similar notice was sent to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on May 16. Two days later, Mr. Kejriwal was questioned for over three hours at his residence in Civil Lines in connection with the alleged assault.

Mr. Prakash was allegedly attacked during a meeting at Mr. Kejriwal’s official residence on February 19 in presence of the CM, Deputy CM and 11 MLAs.

Sources said that the line of questioning for Mr. Sisodia is expected to be “similar” to that of Mr. Kejriwal.

It has been learnt that the Chief Minister evaded questions and answered many with counter questions.

He also allegedly denied that any attack took place during the meeting.

Many questioned

The police have so far questioned 11 MLAs, including Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal — who were arrested and later released on bail.

Mr. Singh said the MLAs were asked whether they had witnessed the attack but all of them were “evasive”. He, however, added that some of the legislators had provided useful information.

Last month, the police had questioned Mr. Kejriwal’s Private Secretary Bibhav Kumar and AAP volunteer Vivek Kumar Yadav.

They were questioned because they allegedly played a key role in organising the meeting.

Mr. Singh had said that the questioning was conducted to ascertain “who all were called for the meeting, who called them and at whose behest the meeting was called”.