Jantar Mantar assault accused Swatantra Bhardwaj arrested in Delhi

Self-styled 'influencer' and activist, Swatantra Bhardwaj, has been arrested and remanded to police custody for one day for the alleged attack on a Delhi protester's father. Bhardwaj had bragged that he had “cracked opened the skull” of a student protester’s father at Jantar Mantar during the July protests.

Bharadwaj was detained on Friday at around 2 pm from his house by a team of Crime Branch officials in his native town, Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh. Police officers said Bharadwaj had reached Bulandshahr on Friday morning, fearing an escalation of the backlash over his purported comments on a video podcast.

The police action comes a day after the Cockroach Janta Party staged a protest in Delhi outside the Parliament Street Police Station. CJP leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das negotiated with the police for hours to press more charges and demand Bhardwaj's arrest.

Additionally, Nishu also submitted a complaint over the rape threats she was receiving. Bhardwaj purportedly confessed during a podcast that he had cracked the skull of a protester. The claim relate to an incident at Jantar Mantar, when Ghaziabad resident Sanjay Kumar (38) sustained a head injury during a scuffle.

In the video, Bhardwaj is seen claiming that he attacked the father of a CJP protester and avoided jail due to the intervention by a politician. He also is heard saying that the person he allegedly attacked suffered 60 stitches and was on the verge of death, and that a case under Section 307 of the IPC, relating to attempt to murder, should have been registered against him.

Bhardwaj said another accused in the case was released from jail the following day and that he himself did not have to go to prison. He is heard boasting that police personnel received a call from a Delhi-based politician, whom he compared to an “elder brother”.

In another video, Bhardwaj is seen boasting about how he attacked protesters with a kada (a thick bangle worn for religious reasons) that he has the “guts” to admit his crime after committing it. He is also seen boasting how he “drenched a blue pigeon in blood”, seemingly a reference to the ASP’s choice of blue colour.

“We are the one’s who do things… We’ll do this in future, too. There will be belt treatment; there could be katta (country pistol) treatment as well,” he said.