In a shocking incident, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra allegedly escaped from police custody on Tuesday after being arrested in a rape case.
Pathanmajra, MLA from Sanour, faced charges of rape, cheating, and criminal intimidation. The FIR was registered on the complaint of a Zirakpur-based woman, who alleged that the MLA misrepresented himself as divorced and entered into a relationship with her. She later discovered that he was already married and still married to her in 2021.
According to Hindustan Times, the woman also accused him of sexual exploitation, threats, and sending obscene material.
The complainant is a 45-year-old divorced woman who has a daughter living abroad. She said she first met Pathanmajra around 2013, when he told her he was divorced. Their relationship continued, and they were married in a gurdwara in Ludhiana in 2021. However, in 2022, when Pathanmajra contested the state assembly elections from Sanour, she found that he had named his first wife in his official affidavit.
The woman claimed the MLA continued to pressure her and promised that he would eventually divorce his first wife, as reported by NDTV.
According to sources, CIA Incharge Patiala Gippy Bajwa said that when the team attempted to arrest MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, he, along with his aides allegedly started stone-pelting and firing and managed to escape. One of his aides was caught from the spot with weapons.
Meanwhile, HT reported that before his arrest, Pathanmajra was hiding at the residence of his relative Gurnam Singh Laadi, an elected member of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, in Dabri village. When the police arrived, the MLA allegedly fled by climbing over a wall, with the possible help of his relatives.
Soon after the FIR was filed, Pathanmajra went live on Facebook and strongly criticised his own party’s leadership. According to NDTV's report, he alleged that the AAP leadership in Delhi was “illegitimately ruling over Punjab.”
He further claimed that his security was withdrawn after he criticised the Bhagwant Mann government, and said that the party’s leaders in Delhi were trying to silence him through FIRs and vigilance action. “They can lodge FIRs against me, I can stay in jail, but my voice cannot be suppressed,” he said.
Earlier, Pathanmajra had also spoken out against the Punjab government’s handling of floods. He had warned that if leaders failed to listen to people, “they will thrash us.”
Police have launched a manhunt to trace the MLA.
