New Delhi: Congress rebel and independent candidate Naresh Meena, who slapped SDM during polling in Rajasthan, has been arrested by the police. Earlier, he reportedly escaped police custody on Wednesday. Later, he came out in the open and revealed in front of the camera why he slapped the SDM and how the commotion started. Naresh accused SDM Amit Chaudhary of orchestrating fraudulent voting. Naresh Meena, who is contesting the election as an independent candidate from Deoli-Uniyara assembly constituency, also alleged that the cops indulged in assaulting people.
Speaking in front of the camera, Naresh Meena said, “When the slapping incident occurred, many journalists also came here. I ordered food for them. But the policemen were not letting us bring the food. Then the SP held my hand and said ‘come let’s talk’. I said I will not talk to anyone below the rank of collector. Then the SP slapped me and put me in the police jeep. My colleagues then got me freed from the clutches of the cops. It was police who triggered it, not us.”
He added, “The policemen beat my friends and the villagers. They fired tear gas shells and threw chilli bombs. I fell unconscious due to this. Then my friends took me to the fields five kilometers away. Here, the policemen razed people’s houses. They entered the houses and beat the women. The children also fell unconscious due to chilli bombs. The police created such a chaos and scare in the village all night.”
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Allegations levelled against SDM
When asked whether slapping the SDM was justified, Meena said, “Yes, it was absolutely justified. It was justified for that thief. He was getting fake voting done. He misbehaved with a Dalit woman. What the police did was also wrong. There should be a judicial investigation of both the cases. Both fake voting and police atrocity should be probed. Action should also be taken against the SP and rest of the police personnel, who set fire in the village, indulged in vandalism, highhandedness and beat up people.”
‘We hit the policemen’
When asked why he ran away from police custody, Meena said, “I did not run away, we beat up the policemen. We thrashed them badly. Then they ran away on their own. They had chilli bombs, due to which I fell unconscious.”
‘This wouldn’t have happened if the collector had arrived’
Meena was asked why did he come with sticks? Meena replied, “No one was listening to us since 7 in the morning. The police was also not behaving properly. The collector was sitting 45 kilometers away with mehendi. If the collector had come, all this would not have happened. Nor would the SDM have been slapped.”
