AAP supporters clash with police outside Tihar jail

 

New Delhi, May 21, 2014, PTI: Scores of AAP supporters today clashed with police defying prohibitory orders outside the high-security Tihar jail where party leader Arvind Kejriwal was sent by a court after he refused to furnish bail bond of Rs 10,000 in a criminal defamation case.

 

The protesters including senior AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Rakhi Birla held the demonstration opposing the "erroneous" order of the local court and wanted to court arrest.

 

Police imposed Section 144 of CrPC restricting mass gathering outside the jail as the AAP supporters started gathering there following Kejriwal’s lodging in the prison.

 

The supporters clashed with police when they were being evicted by the security personnel.

 

"If it is a crime to call a corrupt person corrupt, then send us to jail or hang us. This is dictatorship," said Sanjay Singh while protesting the court order.

 

Earlier, Kejriwal was arrested and sent to Tihar till May 23 by a court after he refused to furnish bail bond in the criminal defamation complaint filed against him by BJP leader Nitin Gadkari.

 

The former BJP president had alleged that he was defamed by the AAP leader, who had included his name in the party’s list of "India’s most corrupt".

 

Yadav slammed the police’s action to evict the AAP workers saying, "We are not doing anything illegal. Those who are indulging in corruption... are sitting in their drawing rooms and enjoying while those opposing corruption are being sent to jail. What kind of justice is this?"

 

"This is police high-handedness. There should be women police to deal with women protesters," he said.

 

A senior police officer at the protest site said they did not evict the women protesters and that women police personnel were being called. Police removed almost all AAP supporters who had gathered outside the jail.