New Delhi – In a significant development in the assault case against AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal, the Delhi Police has added IPC Section 201 (destruction of evidence) against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s Personal Secretary, Bibhav Kumar. This addition could potentially increase the legal troubles for Kumar.
A senior police official stated, “IPC Section 201 has been invoked against Bibhav Kumar for evidence tampering in the Swati Maliwal assault case.”
Previously, the Delhi Police had obtained a five-day custodial remand of Kumar and attempted to retrieve data from his iPhone, which he allegedly deleted. Kumar was arrested for allegedly attacking Swati Maliwal at the Delhi CM House in North Delhi’s Civil Lines area.
During the course of the argument, the Delhi Police alleged that Kumar had deleted crucial cell phone data. Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava said, “We asked for the DVR, which was provided in a pen drive. The footage was found to be blank. An iPhone was given to the Police, but now the accused is not sharing the password. The phone was formatted.”
On May 13, Swati went to meet Arvind Kejriwal where she had an argument with Bibhav. She alleges that Bibhav misbehaved with her and brutally assaulted her, causing her to suffer internal injuries.
Swati took to social media to explain her version of events. She claimed that Bibhav brutally beat her and then started recording a video after calling security. She alleges that the video was edited to remove the part where she was explaining to the security personnel about the assault. She also claimed that the phone has been formatted, and the entire video has been deleted, along with the CCTV footage.
Swati further posted that they once took to the streets to seek justice for Nirbhaya, but now, 12 years later, they are out on the streets to save an accused who has made the CCTV footage disappear and formatted the phone. She expressed her wish that the same effort had been put in for Manish Sisodia, implying that if he were present, such terrible things wouldn’t have happened to her.