NEW DELHI: Former Congress MP from Karl Bagh Dharam Dass Shaswi has alleged a threat to his life, by none other than Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President H.K.L. Bhagat. According to him, feeling a “potent” threat to life, he chose to sleep inside the anti-room of the SHO, Hazrat Nizamuddin, recently. He alleged that his personal security officer and police escort vehicle had abandoned him in the middle of the night,

The incident occurred in Nizamuddin area, as Shastri says in his complaint (DDNo7-B. dated 7/29/92), his PSO misbehaved with his younger brother Prabhu.

He accused his PSO of abusing his brother and of using bad language during an unprovoked altercation,

They also threatened my driver who was asked to leave the vehicle, leaving me stranded on the road,” says the Congress leader.

Shastri says in his complaint that the policemen who abandoned him were acting on behalf of H.K.L. Bhagat and that there was “a greater threat to my life.”

The Congress leader form Karol Bagh has been provided with an elaborate security net by the Delhi Police and lives as a possible terrorist target ever since those fateful days of November’ 84 riots.

Shastri mentions Bhagats name many times in his three-page complaint.

While he slept in the SHO’s rest room a hunt had reportedly been organized by the Police Control Room to trace down his PSO and the escort vehicle.

The duty officer at the Nizamuddin police station says Shastri’s security officers came back to report to him, after which he travelled by an auto-rickshaw to his residence in Naraina Vihar,

Though no formal FIR has been registered by the police, a contradiction is evident in the versions given by the staff at the police station and the one by Area DCP Neeraj Kumar,

Kumar has flatly denied any incident or report having been registered on behalf of Shastri.

He has also refused to agree that the Congress leader stayed in the anti-room of the SHO at Nizamuddin. However, this fact was corroborated in detail by the duty officer at the police station.

Police also said that former MP had reported in an inebriated state and they had at one time sought a proper medical examination to be conducted on him before registering the complaint.

However, the police decided going against it when Shastri insisted that “they do the same.

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992