The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday urged Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena to suspend the chief of the state women’s panel Swati Maliwal to ensure a fair investigation into her allegations of having been molested earlier this week.
On Thursday, Maliwal had alleged that she was molested and dragged for 10-20 metres by a drunk driver near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. She said that the incident occurred around 3 am, when she was inspecting the situation of women’s security in Delhi.
However, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that the man accused of having molested Maliwal has been identified as Harish Chandra Suryavanshi, a member of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Kapoor alleged that the incident appeared to have been a conspiracy to portray Delhi as an unsafe city for women. The BJP leader said that Maliwal will try to influence the police inquiry into the matter by using her position as the chief of the Delhi Commission for Women.
“I therefore request you as Administrator of Delhi to look into the matter and suspend Ms Swati Maliwal from the post of President of Delhi Commission for Women till the inquiry...gets completed,” he said in the letter to Saxena.
Commenting on the allegations, Maliwal said that no one could suppress her voice. “I will continue to fight till I am alive,” she said on Twitter.
The Delhi Commission for Women chief said that on Thursday, a car driver molested her in an inebriated state. “...When I caught hold of him, he locked my hand in the car window and dragged me,” she said. “God saved my life…If the chairperson of the women’s commission is not safe in Delhi, then imagine the situation.”
Based on her complaint, the police registered a first information report under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 354 (criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), and 509 (act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code and other sections of the Motor Vehicle Act.
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