Ashish Pandey
A Delhi Court on Friday rejected the bail application of former BSP MP's son Ashish Pandey, arrested for brandishing a gun outside a five star hotel in New Delhi and sent him to judicial custody till Monday.
Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Anand also rejected Delhi Police's plea seeking Pandey's custody for two more days after he was produced in the court on Friday following his one day custodial interrogation.
Dismissing the bail plea, the court said the "arrogance" and "high-headedness" of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader's son can be clearly made out from the contents of the first information report.
Ashish Pandey has been facing trouble ever since he was seen brandishing a gun at guests and threatening them at a plush Delhi hotel, in a video this month. After dodging the police for days, Pandey finally surrendered before the Patiala House Court on Thursday, a day after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him. He was subsequently arrested and taken into one-day police custody. He told police he was hiding in Uttar Pradesh's Basti district along with his wife and child as he got scared after the video went viral. Ashish Pandey was on the run since the early Sunday morning incident at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which prompted the police to step in and launch a hunt for the accused who had gone missing after the incident.
Delhi Police told the court that it wanted further custody of Pandey to determine if there were any financial transactions that took place between him and the three women accompanying him on the night of the incident.
They also wanted to ascertain the people Pandey met during the period he was absconding as they might have helped him, the police said.
Pandey's counsel S P N Tripathy argued that the incident happened at the spur of the moment and his client was entitled to keep a weapon for his safety and those around him.
Tripathy said Pandey only brought the weapon from the car because he felt threatened and for the safety of the women around him but he had enough self control to not use it.
Here's what Ashish Pandey said in the video:
# Everyone is saying I threatened a woman with a gun but I did not even address the woman, who was with him. She pushed me and even made obscene gestures at me using her hands. Her male friend said things to me.
# They should check CCTV footage and see who entered the ladies' washroom and after exiting from it, who threatened whom. When I came out, I took the licensed gun from my vehicle. I did not aim the gun towards him and the weapon was pointed downwards.
# I accept I moved out of my car with a weapon (but) neither did I point it at anyone nor did I show it
# Please take statements from the hotel staff. They will tell you everything
# I have been subjected to a media trial. I am being portrayed as a terrorist. I am not denying that the incident happened but it is being shown from one side," he said in a video message he released before he surrendered.
# Ashish Pandey said he was a businessman but was consistently being referred to only as a politician's son. "I am a businessman. To be a politician's son or brother isn't a crime."
# He stressed that he doesn't have a criminal record. "Not even a single case has been filed against me. It was a licensed weapon that I had."
# He said the man he had the scuffle with at the hotel "threatened to kill me
