‘Berlin wall’ at AIIMS has to go, says MLA Bharti

NEW DELHI: Day after he was booked for allegedly trying to demolish a rear wall of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), AAP MLA Somnath Bharti said

NEW DELHI: Day after he was booked for allegedly trying to demolish a rear wall of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), AAP MLA Somnath Bharti said on Monday that the wall has to go.

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“Come what may, the Berlin wall will have to go,” said the MLA who represents Malviya Nagar constituency.

“It is public property and a roadblock to convenience of thousands of residents of Gautam Nagar and Masjid Moth,” Bharti said.

Bharti and his over 300 supporters were accused of trying to break the wall with a bulldozer on September 9. An FIR was registered after a complaint from the chief security officer of AIIMS. On Sunday, he and his supporters were charged with rioting, damaging public property and misbehaving with security guards at the institute.

“People have joined hands against it. I am just leading them,” the legislator said.

“Over the last two years, we have explored all options to sort out the issue. It is a matter of record that AIIMS management did not turn up at any of the meetings attended by PWD, SDMC and police officials to discuss the problem. We will take the issue to its logical end,” he said.

“Wherever common man will be troubled I will go. D allegation that residents dismantled the wall is a blatant lie. I will fight in court (sic),” Bharti tweeted soon after he allegedly led a group of Gautam Nagar residents to demolish the wall on September 9.

The Malviya Nagar MLA, who is also a founding member of AAP, is not new to controversy. Bharti first made headlines during his tenure as law minister in 2014 when he allegedly ‘raided’ a house in Khirki Extension in south Delhi at midnight to ‘expose’ a “drug and sex cartel”.