Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti at the Delhi International Kite Festival
Law Minister Somnath Bharti skipped a meeting with the Delhi Commission of Women today, choosing instead to attend a kite festival in the capital.
Mr Bharti's lawyers and the Commission had a public confrontation today as tempers ran high over the minister sending his lawyers instead of appearing before the panel himself. He had not responded to two previous notices, the panel alleged.
(Read)Mr Bharti had been summoned by the women's rights panel to explain his controversial "midnight raid" last week when, surrounded by supporters, he ordered police officers to raid homes rented by Ugandan women in his constituency, claiming that they were being used to traffic drugs and sex. Mr Bharti's supporters forced some of the women to give urine samples for drug tests.
The minister had organized for cameras to accompany him; the footage shows him arguing with police officers who refused to arrest the women without warrants. That decision provoked a two-day protest in the heart of Delhi by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party who say the encounter proves that the city's police force is indifferent to women's safety and ignores the state government because it reports to the union Home Ministry.
A police case has been filed against the Law Minister by the women; seven have testified against him in court; some of them have identified Mr Bharti as the leader of a mob that beat and molested them.
Mr Bharti's Aam Aadmi Party or AAP defended him last night, claiming that in the unedited footage of his raid, he does not demonstrate racist behaviour, does not manhandle the women, and does not misuse his office as a minister.
That footage was released by the party in an attempt to justify its unyielding support for Mr Bharti despite women activists, human rights groups and other parties demanding his removal from office.