A court in Delhi on Friday slammed the Delhi police for ‘security lapse’ which led to a girl throw ink at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier this week.
The court said that it was a “clear-cut case of security lapse” and Delhi Police had not behaved responsibly in protecting him.
Expressing concern that the outcome of the attack may have been fatal as Kejriwal was “fortunate enough that liquid contained in the bottle was simply ink”, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Sanjay Kumar Aggarwal was quoted by PTI.
He said, “one may imagine what would have been the situation in case, god forbid, the bottle could have contained some corrosive substance like acid etc, mixed with ink.”
“If Chief Minister of Delhi is not safe, one may wonder as to what will be the fate of ordinary prudent citizens of Delhi,” he wondered.
“I fail to understand as to how a bottle containing ink could not be detected during frisking. This is a clear-cut case of security lapses on part of police, especially in the circumstances when the public gathering was addressed in a walled stadium and not in an unfenced ground,” the judge said.
He, however, granted the attacker Bhawna Arora on bail on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety of the like amount, saying “no useful purpose shall be served by keeping the applicant behind bars.”
The court said that the police, it appears, had not taken any lesson from the past.
It said, “It is highly regrettable that even despite having earlier experiences of such incidents, the police could not behave responsibly to take effective steps for the protection of the Chief Minister and others present at the stage.”
It noted that “security of constitutional authorities is the responsibility of the State and the police should re-look and revisit its system of providing security to them after learning from bad experiences in the past.”
Delhi Police had defended itself saying the security provided to Kejriwal was ‘as per practice.’