Ex-BSP MP’s son surrenders, sent to day’s police custody

Tribune News Service
New Delhi/Lucknow, Oct 18

Ashish Pandey, a former BSP MP’s son who had brandished pistol at guests and threatened them in the foyer of a five-star hotel here, surrendered on Thursday before a Delhi court that sent him to one-day police custody.

The accused had moved an application seeking to surrender before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmender Singh.

The application for surrender, filed through lawyer SPM Tripathi, said Ashish, son of ex-BSP lawmaker Rakesh Pandey, has been wrongly framed in the FIR and has been subjected to media trial.

The application said Ashish is ready to submit before the court voluntarily and police may be directed to take him into custody if required.

However, since the magistrate concerned was on leave, the plea, seeking judicial nod to surrender, of Ashish was referred to another link judge who was hearing urgent matters of other courts whose presiding officers were on leave.

Meanwhile, the court staff of Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmender Singh informed police about Ashish’s surrender plea to be taken up by link magistrate Neetu Sharma.

The accused along with his lawyers appeared before Metropolitan Magistrate Sharma to press for his surrender plea and police personnel were also there to seek custodial interrogation of Ashish. The magistrate, at the outset, allowed the policemen to formally arrest and quiz Ashish on court premises for 20 minutes.

Later, the public prosecutor submitted that police was seeking his four-day custodial interrogation. “Accused is from Lucknow. The weapon has to be recovered and also it has to be verified whether the gun has a licence. The accused is also required to be taken to Lucknow and other places to know whereabouts of other accused,” the prosecutor said.

The counsel appearing for the accused opposed the application moved by police. He said his client was ready to cooperate. “We can deposit our pistol. My client is suffering just due to media hype, and because his father was an MP. This matter is politically motivated,” he said.

Before surrendering, Ashish in a video message said he was being subjected to media trial and alleged only one side of the story was being shown, portraying him as a “terrorist”. “I have a licensed weapon for the past 20 years and have no instance of misusing it ever,” he said.