New Delhi: Languishing in Tihar jail for over a month after being arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case linked to the now-scrapped controversial Delhi liquor policy, Arvind Kejriwal may be staring at fresh trouble.
Delhi Lieutenant-Governor V K Saxena on Monday recommended a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe against the chief minister for allegedly receiving political funding from the banned Khalistani extremist organisation ‘Sikhs for Justice’.
LG Saxena’s recommendation was based on a complaint that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had received $16 million from ‘Sikhs for Justice’ for “facilitating the release of Devendra Pal Bhullar and espousing pro-Khalistani sentiments”.
The complaint was filed by Ashoo Mongia of the World Hindu Federation.
Bhullar, a convict in the 1993 Delhi bomb blast case, was found guilty in connection with the killing of nine people and injuring 31 others in a blast outside Youth Congress headquarters in the national Capital.
Arrested after deportation from Germany, Bhullar – lodged in Tihar jail since 1995 — was awarded death penalty by a designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court in August 2001. However, his capital punishment was commuted to life sentence in 2014.
LG Saxena, in his recommendation to the Union Home Secretary, stated that since the complaint is made against a sitting chief minister and relates to political funding received from a banned extremist organisation, “the electronic evidences adduced by the complainant requires investigation including forensic examination,” The Indian Express reported.
Saxena has referred to a letter written by Kejriwal to Iqbal Singh in January 2014, mentioning that “the AAP Government has already recommended to the President the release of Professor Bhullar and would be working on other issues including formation of SIT, etc. sympathetically and in a time-bound manner”.
Mongia’s complaint also refers to a video released by Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, where he alleged that AAP received $16 million from Khalistani groups between 2014 and 2022.
