Politician’s son who wielded gun at couple surrenders
NEW DELHI: On the run for four days after brandishing a pistol at a couple inside the premises of a five-star hotel in Delhi, an ex-parliamentarian’s son surrendered before a city court on Thursday morning.
Ahead of surrendering before the magistrate on Thursday morning at 11am, Pandey — in a video spanning 156 seconds and released early Thursday morning — invoked his income-tax records for the last 20 years and crime-free past to blame the media of conducting a trial against him.
In the video, the Lucknowbased businessman confessed to his crime but pinned the blame for his ‘misbehaviour’ at the couple he had brandished the gun at Hyatt Regency hotel on Sunday.
“I am not denying that the incident occurred... but only one side of the incident is being portrayed in the media,” he said, accusing his alleged victim, Gaurav Singh, of threatening to kill him.
“I request that CCTV footage from the hotel be checked to know who threatened whom. He (Singh) threatened to kill me (when) I asked him to leave the (women’s) washroom,” alleged Pandey, adding that Singh’s woman friend, who has accused him of molesting her, had made an obscene gesture at him and even pushed him. He also claimed that he had kept the gun for his safety. Police raided Pandey’s Jungpura office late Thursday and recovered the licenced pistol he was seen brandishing. The BMW car he was driving at the time of the crime was recovered
from his uncle’s home in Lucknow. Special CP (law-and-order) RP Upadhyay confirmed the development.