- Sahib Singh, slapped by Delhi minister Parvesh Verma, was previously accused of assaulting a civic worker
- A complaint from June detailed Sahib Singh’s alleged involvement in beating a municipal waste collector
- FIR was filed under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections after the municipal worker’s medico-legal exam
A man who was seen on camera being slapped by Delhi minister Parvesh Verma yesterday was himself an accused in an alleged case of assaulting a municipal worker, according to police records.
Sahib Singh, 22, was recording on mobile work being done on a road while the Delhi public works department minister was inspecting it. Then, the minister was seen hitting the man, triggering a war of words with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
New details shared by BJP leader Tajinder Bagga in a post on X alleged Sahib Singh, "the man who abused cabinet minister Parvesh Verma's family", was previously arrested by the Delhi Police in another case filed with the police in Delhi's Tilak Nagar.
He also shared a copy of the complaint filed by the municipal worker in June this year. According to the complaint, the worker was collecting waste when a dispute allegedly began over garbage being thrown from the second floor of a building into the collection vehicle.
Two men also came on a bike and got enraged over the municipal vehicle not leaving space for them to pass, adding to the tension. They along with some men from the same house pulled out the worker from the collection vehicle and allegedly thrashed him. The handwritten complaint named one of the accused as "Sahib" and another identified as "Monu". The injured worker was taken to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, where a medico-legal examination was done.
Following the complaint, a first information report (FIR) was filed back then under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
Dhan Bahadur, the worker who was assaulted by Sahib Singh, told NDTV that he was helping a garbage-collection truck alongside a driver, Mukesh, when a woman threw garbage directly from her window. Bahadur said he asked her not to litter and instead to bring the waste to the ground floor and hand it to the civic body's garbage collectors.
Some men then came out of the same house and forcibly pulled Bahadur off the garbage collection vehicle and assaulted him so badly that he said he fainted.
A police team subsequently rescued him and took him to hospital, he said. Bahadur alleged Sahib Singh was accompanied by a man named Karan, who claimed to be the nephew of local MLA Jarnail Singh.
After the FIR was filed, Bahadur said Sahib Singh and Jarnail Singh requested him to take back the case and settle the matter.
In a video post on X, the Delhi minister said his inspection visit was proceeding peacefully before the man came and used abusive language.
"... I personally called AAP MLA Jarneil Singh three times to invite him. I had only gone to inspect the road to the gurdwara with my engineer, because there is an event at the gurdwara on October 5, and this road hadn't been built for 15 years," he said.
"But the MLA showed up with his history-sheeter goons, resorted to abusive and indecent language, and turned violent. My sole purpose is to carry out development work, and if anyone obstructs that, I will not tolerate it," he added.
Other BJP leaders have given support to their party colleague, saying AAP workers confronted him with rudeness and hurled abuses at his family members to provoke a response on camera.
