Somnath Bharti breaks down, denies domestic violence charges, say police

“Initially, he was not responsive to the questions. But when police asked him specific questions about the alleged assault on his wife, he started crying,” said a senior police officer.

The AAP MLA denied all the charges made by his wife, claiming they were baseless, said sources. He also told the police he had been in Delhi since the high court rejected his bail plea.

The police then brought in a Faridabad-based businessman whose car the AAP MLA had borrowed to allegedly escape from Delhi.

“Bharti was confronted with the driver of a Faridabad-based businessman, who had dropped him at the Yamuna Expressway. He claimed he had never seen the driver,” said the officer.

Delhi Police has now added Section 212 of the Indian Penal Code in the existing FIR against those who allegedly provided shelter to the legislator while he was “on the run”.

“We will request the court to extend Bharti’s police custody by at least a day. We need to take him to all those places where he had taken shelter while he was on the run and make him confront all those who had harboured him,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (South-Western range) Dependra Pathak.

On Wednesday, the police took Bharti to the apartment he shared with his wife Lipika in Dwarka in a bid to reconstruct the chain of events, said sources.

Though Lipika was present, the couple did not speak to each other, said a police officer.

Bharti was later taken to his office in Malviya Nagar as well as his mother’s residence at Vasant Kunj. So far, the police have not been able to recover the knife with which Bharti allegedly tried to slit his wife’s wrist.

Bharti claimed that he had some documents and records, including text messages, to establish his innocence in the matter. But the AAP MLA failed to produce any such evidence, said police sources.

“The police will take Bharti’s dog Don to a veterinary hospital in Moti Bagh. The labrador will be examined by an expert in the presence of its master. The objective is to check whether the dog is capable of inflicting the kind of wounds visible near the victim’s abdomen. It also has to

be checked whether it follows its master’s command, and to what extent,” said the officer.

Investigators will also preserve the dental impression of the dog — taking into consideration natural changes over the four-year period since he allegedly bit Lipika — and get it checked by an expert.