BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga - arrested last week by Punjab Police for allegedly making provocative statements promoting religious enmity and criminal intimidation - on Wednesday claimed he had been treated 'like a terrorist' because he had asked the AAP chief about promises to act against the accused in the 2015 Guru Granth Sahib sacrilege case.
"I will continue to ask Kejriwal questions… whether one or 1,000 cases are registered against me," Bagga said at the BJP's Delhi office in his first press conference since his dramatic arrest.
"I was arrested like a terrorist. Was it my fault to ask Kejriwal about his promise to arrest accused in Guru Granth Sahib sacrilege… was it my fault to ask him about action against drug mafia and separatists raising slogans of Khalistan in Punjab…" the BJP leader said.
The AAP is in power in both Delhi and Punjab - where it recorded a thumping win in February polls - with Kejriwal heading the government in the national capital and Bhagwant Singh Mann in Punjab.
{{/usCountry}}The AAP is in power in both Delhi and Punjab - where it recorded a thumping win in February polls - with Kejriwal heading the government in the national capital and Bhagwant Singh Mann in Punjab.
{{/usCountry}}Last week the police of Punjab, Delhi and another state - Haryana - faced-off in a barely-believable turn of events triggered by Bagga's arrest from his residence in the national capital's Janakpuri.
READ: AAP, BJP lock horns over Tajinder Bagga’s arrest
On their way to Punjab's Mohali, the team was intercepted in Kurukshetra in BJP-ruled Haryana after Delhi Police - which reports to the union home ministry - filed a case of attempted kidnapping against the Punjab cops.
The complaint was made by Bagga's father, who alleged "some people" had taken his son away. Bagga was brought back to Delhi and released.
Punjab Police then secured an arrest warrant from a Mohali court but Bagga got relief from the Punjab and Haryana high court, which stayed his arrest.
On Tuesday the high court extended protection from arrest till July 5.
Tajinder Bagga gets court relief amid AAP vs BJP, can't be arrested till July 5
"… warrants of arrest issued against the petitioner by the court concerned (in Punjab's Mohali) in the present FIR shall not be executed till the next date of hearing," Justice Anoop Chitkara said at a hearing convened at his home.
"Furthermore, no coercive steps shall be taken against the petitioner…"
With input from PTI