Pandey

Ashish Pandey’s Facebook profile showed him posing with several weapons, including a rifle, pistols and knives. UP’S director general of police (DGP) OP Singh said Pandey has had a licence for a pistol since 2000.

Whether it was the same pistol he brandished early on Sunday morning, and the licence status of the other weapons seen in the pictures, would be known only after Pandey’s interrogation. Delhi Police have sought to get the arms licence of Ashish Pandey cancelled.

Pandey was initially booked by Delhi Police only under the Arms Act on Monday morning, but police later added Indian Penal Code sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 354 (criminal force used against woman to outrage her modesty).

If convicted under the Arms Act, the most stringent of all these offences, Pandey could land in jail for at least seven years. “Ashish switched off his mobile phone and escaped from his Lucknow home with his wife and children at 9.30am today (Tuesday). The UP Police have formed multiple teams and are helping us to arrest him,” said Devender Arya, deputy commissioner of police (south-west).

The incident took place at the Hyatt Regency hotel in south Delhi’s Bhikaji Cama Place at 3.40am on Sunday. The DCP said Pandey was at the hotel with five friends — three women and two men — to attend a party.

Gaurav Singh, the son of Kanwar Karan Singh, a former Congress MLA from Delhi’s Model Town constituency from 1998 to 2013, was visiting the coffee shop of the same hotel. “My friend wanted to throw up after having soup. I walked her to the washroom and waited outside. Three seemingly drunk women entered the same washroom moments later. They were randomly abusing and cursing. As I called for the hotel staff to assist my friend, the three women began bullying and abusing her,” Singh told a news channel.

According to an investigator, the women also abused Singh for standing near the washroom meant for women.

Singh said that he requested to be left alone. But as he and his friend were planning to leave the hotel, they were again allegedly confronted by three women, accompanied by Pandey, in the portico of the hotel.

“My friend retaliated by showing the women her middle finger. As I was calming down my friend, Ashish brought out a pistol from his BMW car and threatened to shoot me at the porch of the hotel,” alleged Singh.

The video, apparently shot by one of Pandey’s woman friends on her mobile phone, shows him carrying a pistol and being accompanied by a woman friend as the duo went about threatening the couple. The hotel’s security guards appeared to talk to the two groups.

In the video, Pandey is heard saying he is from Lucknow and is seen threatening to “bury” the couple and their “kranti” (revolution). The video also shows one of Pandey’s male friends trying to calm him down but it did not stop him or the women from hurling expletives.

Pandey and his friends later drove away while the other cou- ple went on to have dinner before leaving. Hyatt Regency management issued a statement on Tuesday saying the hotel was cooperating with authorities and that the safety and security of their guests was its primary concern. Pandey and his family members were not available for comment, despite repeated calls.