The Punjab Police on Friday arrested Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga from his home in New Delhi, ANI reported.
Bagga has been held in connection to a case lodged against him for making provocative statements against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The Punjab Police said that it had sent five notices were sent to Bagga asking him to join the investigation.
“In spite of that the accused deliberately did not join the probe,” the police said, according to ANI. “Today morning following due process of law, Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga was arrested from his home in Delhi.”
The complaint was filed by Sunny Singh Ahluwalia, a leader of the Punjab unit of the Aam Aadmi Party, according to India Today.
Ahluwalia had complained that Bagga allegedly threatened Kejriwal during a protest outside the chief minister’s residence on March 30. During the protest, Bagga had allegedly told television channels that “he would not let Kejriwal live”, according to The Indian Express.
The protest was held by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party after Kejriwal commented that the makers of the movie The Kashmir Files should release it on video streaming platform YouTube so that everyone could watch it free of cost.
On Ahluwalia’s complaint, Bagga had been booked by the Punjab Police on April 4 under Sections 153A (promoting enmity), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code on April 1.
On Friday, officials of the Punjab Police arrived at the Janakpuri Police Station in New Delhi.
“After sharing the details [of Bagga’s case], they sent their team to his [Bagga’s] house from where he was picked up and taken to Janakpuri police station,” an unidentified police official told The Indian Express.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders criticised the action against Bagga and accused Kejriwal of misusing the Punjab Police to target political opponents.
“Arvind Kejriwal’s brazen misuse of Punjab police to target political opponents is not unexpected,” BJP Information Technology Cell chief Amit Malviya wrote in a tweet. “He had been raging for this. But this won’t go down well. We will fight to secure every single karyakarta [party workers] of ours and ensure that Kejriwal learns how to handle power the hard way…”
BJP leader Kapil Mishra wrote that a “true Sikh” like Bagga cannot be threatened by taking him into custody.
Bagga was appointed as a spokesperson of the saffron party in 2017 after he shot to prominence for staging violent demonstrations and posting provocative social media content. In 2018, Bagga had put up a poster at the ITO area of Delhi, calling former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the “father of mob lynching”.
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