Bihar BJP chief and West Champaran MP Sanjay Jaiswal faces arrest along with eight others after police in their investigations have found allegations of rioting, shouting slogans to hurt religious sentiments, asking guards to open fire, beating and threatening voters of the minority community to be true against them. They will now have to seek bail to avoid arrest.

The police were investigating a case filed by members of the minority community at Ghorasahan police station in East Champaran district after fracas at a polling booth on May 12 during the Lok Sabha elections.

An angry mob then had surrounded Jaiswal at polling booth number 162 at Narkatia, which though technically a part of the West Champaran Lok Sabha constituency, is administratively under the East Champaran district.

Jaiswal, who at present is also the chief whip of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, had to take shelter inside the booth to escape being lynched, while angry people laid seize outside. He was rescued by the security forces after several hours. Jaiswal and the locals of that area filed cases against each other after the incident.

Additional superintendent of police (ASP) Shaishav Yadav was supervising the case and submitted an 18-page report that mentioned that the charges against Jaiswal seemed to be true.

“The case registered by people belonging to the minority community against Jaiswal for hurting religious sentiments, rioting, inciting communal sentiments, beating them up, and asking bodyguards to open fire has been found to be true by the ASP in his report,” East Champaran SP Upendra Kumar Sharma told The Telegraph.

However, Sharma said that no warrant or order for kurki jabti (seizure of assets) have been procured from the court in the case.

“The case has been registered under bailable sections of the IPC and the accused can get bail from the police station without moving the court. Similarly, the people of the minority community against whom a case was registered from Jaiswal’s side, have taken bail from the court,” Sharma added.

When contacted by this newspaper, Jaiswal said over phone from Delhi that this was an example where “a victim was victimised by the police and the natural course of justice was not being followed.”

“Everybody saw and knows how there was a conspiracy to kill me and I had to save my life by taking shelter inside the polling station. Vehicles belonging to the police and the district administration were damaged when they came to rescue me. They have accepted all these, yet they have blamed me in the report,” Jaiswal said.

The Bihar BJP chief asserted that the concerned ASP never enquired or asked anything from him to know his side while supervision the case and declared the case to be true, thereby violating the principles of natural justice.

Asked about the future course of action, Jaiswal said: “The police have concocted a story to implicate me. I am not going to seek bail. If I have committed a crime I should go to jail. As far as justice is concerned, I have full faith in the judicial system.”