AAP MLA Somnath Bharti Booked for 'Hurling Abuses' at Woman Scribe

Noida: Delhi MLA Somnath Bharti was booked on Wednesday on charges of hurling abuses at a woman journalist, a police official said.

The FIR against the AAP MLA was lodged on the complaint of the woman journalist of a private TV news channel, who accused him of calling her names and asking her to "become a prostitute".

In her complaint, the anchor of the Hindi news channel told police that Bharti, during a TV show called her a BJP's agent and asked her to become a prostitute, the official said.

Denying the allegations, Bharti, however, threatened to file a defamation case against both the news channel and its anchor.

He said he had joined the TV show over phone to discuss the attack on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday, but the video was being presented with manipulation.

I will file a defamation case against both the news anchor as well as the channel, Bharti told PTI.

The complaint was lodged by the scribe at the Women Police Station in Noida and a First Information Report under sections 504 and 509 of the Indian Penal Code was registered against the MLA, the official said.

While Section 504 of the IPC lists the offence of heaping "intentional insult with an intent to provoke breach of the peace", section 509 pertains to "insulting a woman's modesty through words, gestures or an act," a police official said.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has disapproved Somnath Bharti's alleged behaviour towards the woman journalist.

"Somnath Bharti should not have talked the way he did on television," AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said.