On 26th May, Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal alleged in a social media post that she is getting rape and death threats since she accused AAP’s supremo Arvind Kejriwal’s Personal Secretary Bibhak Kumar of assaulting her. In a long post on X, Maliwal said that the threats were amplified after propagandist YouTuber and AAP cheerleader Dhruv Rathee made a “one-sided” video against her.
She called out party leadership and said that they tried to intimidate her into withdrawing the complaint she filed. “However, for Dhruv, I tried my best to reach out to him to tell him my version but he ignored my calls and messages,” she added while saying that Rathee ignored her messages and calls. Maliwal added, “It is shameful that people like him, who claim to be independent journalists could act like other AAP spokespersons and victim-shame me to the extent that I am now facing extreme abuses and threats.”
Moving ahead in the post, she said that in his 2.5-minute video against her, Dhruv Rathee failed to mention that AAP took a u-turn on its stand after accepting the incident happened. For those who are unaware, a day after the alleged assault, AAP leader Sanjay Singh on-camera admitted that Maliwal was assaulted by Kumar.
She mentioned how Rathee did not talk about the injuries revealed in the MLC report. He also failed to mention that Kumar’s phone was formatted before Delhi Police confiscated it. Furthermore, he did not mention Kumar was arrested from CM’s residence, the crime scene where the incident happened. She questioned, “How a woman who always stood for the right issues, even went to Manipur alone without security could be bought over by the BJP?”
Maliwal also shared some screenshots where she got rape and death threats as replies to the stories on Instagram.
Swati Maliwal Assault Case
On 13th May, the for Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief, current Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal accused the former Personal secretary of Arvind Kejriwal of assaulting her. In her complaint, Maliwal has alleged that Kejriwal’s personal Secretary Bibhav Kumar slapped” her at least seven to eight times while she continued screaming and brutally dragged her while kicking her in her chest, stomach, and pelvis area. According to the Delhi Police FIR, Maliwal described the events of May 13 when she had gone to the Civil Lines residence of Chief Minister Kejriwal. The Delhi Police have arrested Kumar in this case.
In Kumar’s remand application, Delhi Police submitted that the attack on the AAP MP could have been fatal.
The Police also mentioned in their remand request that Bibhav Kumar admitted to formatting his Apple iPhone 15, and the phone needs to be taken to Mumbai to recover the data, for which his police remand was needed. Notably, as per the Police, CCTV footage from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s official residence during the period of assault on May 13 has turned out to be blank. It was also reported earlier that Delhi Police may add a destruction of evidence charge against Bibhav Kumar for deleting CCTV footage and formatting the phone.
Meanwhile, as the entire Aam Aadmi Party, except DCW member Vandana Singh, has started a campaign against Maliwal calling her allegations “false” and labelling her a “traitor and a BJP agent”, she recently warned her party against using such tags for her stating that she will take Kejriwal and company to court for every lie spread against her.
Dhruv Rathee and his AAP connections
Dhruv Rathee, though claims to be an intependent YouTuber, apparantly has deep and old connections with AAP. An X user Porus shared a video from 2015 that was shared on AAP’s official Facebook Page. That video contained Rathee’s name as “Video Editor”.