Tihar barrier claim on Kejri, wife meetings

The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday protested that the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was being treated as an ordinary prisoner when it came to his meeting his wife and personal secretary at the Tihar Central Jail, where he is lodged in judicial remand in the Delhi liquor policy case.

The party's Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Sanjay Singh accused the jail authorities of not allowing in-person meetings to Kejriwal with his family and of compelling him to meet them like an ordinary prisoner through the "mulakat jangla" or meeting room where an iron mesh separates them and they can also only look at each other through a glass window.

Singh raised the issue at a press conference where he termed the action of the jail authorities "an attempt to break the morale of chief minister Kejriwal" and "inhuman". He said "even hardcore criminals are allowed in-person meetings in the prison".

While meetings through the meeting room are the norm, Singh demanded special treatment for Kejriwal saying, "in Tihar jail, many meetings take place but three-time elected chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is being humiliated and made to meet his family through the jangla' (iron enclosure)." He charged that this was happening on the "instructions of the BJP-led Central government".