New Delhi: A day after one of its officers said that former Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain was “rescued” along with his family by the police on the intervening night of February 24 and 25, Delhi police has denied the claim.
The Delhi police has now gone against the statements given to reporters by its own officer, Additional Commissioner of Police A.K. Singla. Singla had said that the Nehru Vihar councillor, who was booked in a case of murder and kidnapping and was subsequently suspended by AAP from the primary membership of the party pending investigation, was himself a victim of the violence.
Also read: Delhi Riots: FIR Against Tahir Hussain Over ‘Role’ in Killing IB Man, AAP Suspends Councillor
Hussain himself has made this claim repeatedly.
Hussain had claimed that some miscreants had taken over his building on February 24. He had further claimed that when the area police, police control room, Station House Officer and Assistant Commissioner of Police did not respond to his SOS calls on February 24, he had called AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh who arranged to send police to his building.
In his statement, Additional CP Singla had stated:
“After getting a stress call from Tahir Hussain, a team of police went to the building belonging to him. He refused to come out of the building without a police escort after which he was taken out by a team of police.”
This would have corroborated Hussain’s own account.
However, the Delhi Police denied this claim and said:
“The facts are that on the intervening night of February 24-25, 2020, some men informed police deployed at Chand Bagh that Tahir Hussain was trapped as crowd had surrounded his house. The police verified the same to be incorrect and Tahir Hussain was found available in his house.”
It further added, “Tahir Hussain was named as accused on February 26, 2020, upon recovery of the body of the IB staffer. His house was searched and he was found absconding. Efforts are being made to arrest him.”
The councillor had stated that the police arrived around 8 pm and searched the entire building but allegedly found nothing that could have been used in the riots. He had also claimed that at around 11.30 pm, he and his family was safely escorted out of the building by the police.
Further, he had claimed that he and his wife returned the following morning when police was still present at the building. While he had come to remove the vehicles parked in a lot adjacent to the building, his wife had come to take some essential belongings. Thereafter, Hussain said they had left for a relative’s place.
He had also insisted that police was present at the building till 4 pm on February 25.
It is alleged that the building was used for by a mob for throwing stones, bricks, petrol bombs and chemicals on surrounding buildings and people on the roads around it. Several leaders of the BJP, including former MLA Kapil Mishra alleged that Hussain was present in the building when these attacks happened.
The mob that used the building was also accused of abducting and killing Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma, who along with three other locals was said to have been forcibly taken away and murdered. His body and those of two other missing persons were subsequently recovered with multiple injuries from a nearby drain.