Attacker used to beat wife, lost job due to anger

NEW DELHI: Anil Kumar Sharma, the man who had tried to smear chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s face with chilli powder, has a very disturbing past. Not only is he separated from his wife, but he had lost his job due to his erratic behaviour. He has been sent to judicial custody.
The 40-year-old’s former neighbours and the landlord of the house in Naraina where he spent his childhood recall that he used to beat up his wife and daughter after every petty argument and stay away from home for days. While his wife has now shifted to her hometown in Haridwar, Sharma stays with his aunt, Kusum, at Jahangirpur village in Greater Noida.

A graduate in English literature from Meerut University, Sharma worked in various MNCs, but was forced to quit due to his bad behaviour. Lately, he was employed with a private firm in Gurgaon as a data entry operator earning a salary of Rs 14,000.

In 2016, Sharma had tried to meet the CM at the secretariat, but when he didn’t get the opportunity he smashed the glass pane of the reception.

“I had last met him six years ago while he was staying here with his aunt. He was good at reciting English poems and taught a few children in the neighbourhood. He would preach imbibing good habits,” recalled his landlord Brahm Singh.

Sharma was brought up by his aunt after the death of his parents. When he was a child, he used to refer to his aunt as his mother at times. Even she had got fed up of his behaviour. She used to work at a government-owned factory near Naraina.

“We thought his erratic behaviour would change if he got married, so we fixed a match with a girl from Haridwar. However, a few years into the marriage he started assaulting her. He didn’t even spare his daughter,” Singh said. He would get into arguments over petty issues like not serving tea on time, the neighbours recalled.

Kusum had taken him to a woman preacher at a Sai ashram to perform some rituals on him to change his behaviour. He had been visiting the ashram ever since. His colleagues claimed that he stayed there for days and often kept talking to himself for hours. Police also found that he was addicted to ganja since his college days.

On Tuesday morning, Sharma left the ashram after packing breakfast saying that he would meet the CM to tell him about his problems.