‘Kejriwal not being allowed in-person meetings with kin’

NEW DELHI: Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Saturday claimed that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was not being allowed in-person meetings with his family in Tihar jail.

Addressing a press conference, Singh said, “There is an attempt to break the morale of CM Kejriwal.

“His family has not been allowed in-person meetings with him. They are only allowed to meet him through the jangla. This is inhuman. Even hardcore criminals are allowed in-person meetings,” the AAP leader said.

The ‘mulakat jangla’ is an iron mesh which separates the inmate from the visitor in a room inside the jail. A visitor and an inmate can talk to each other by sitting on different sides of the mesh.

“In the same Tihar jail, many meetings take place but Arvind Kejriwal, a three-time elected chief minister, is being humiliated and made to meet his family through the jangla. This is happening at the behest of the BJP-led Central government,” Singh said.

“His rights as an inmate are being snatched,” said the AAP leader, who was granted bail by the Supreme Court earlier this month after spending over six months in jail in the Delhi excise policy case.

There was no immediate reaction from the Tihar administration.

Kejriwal, the AAP national convener, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 21 in connection with a money laundering probe pertaining to alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy 2021-22. He is currently lodged in jail number 2 in the Tihar prison complex. Every prisoner in Delhi’s jails is entitled to submit the names of 10 people, who can visit them twice a week — with the caveat that only three visitors are allowed to meet the prisoner at a time. The names of

these people must be submitted to the jail superintendent for verification.

On Friday, the jail authorities scheduled Kejriwal’s meeting with his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann for April 15, saying that he can meet the AAP convener, but as a normal visitor in the ‘mulakat jangla’.

The chief minister met his wife Sunita Kejriwal and personal secretary Bibhav Kumar inside Tihar Jail on Tuesday.