Black ink thrown at yoga guru, man held

Ramdev, who immediately wound up the Press conference, later said he was not deterred by such attacks and would continue his campaign with full force against corruption.

Allegedly ‘perturbed’ over yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s remarks over the Batla House encounter, a man threw black ink on his face at a Press conference in the Capital on Saturday. The accused, identified as Kamran Siddiqui, was caught and assaulted by Ramdev’s supporters leading to ruckus in the Constitution Club where the Press conference was going on. He was later arrested and a criminal case was registered against him at the Parliament Street police station.

The incident took place as soon Ramdev stood up from his chair after wrapping up the conference during which he sarcastically pointed at the infamous encounter of September 2008 in Batla House terming it as ‘genuine’. With an indirect reference to Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, Ramdev said if an encounter is termed ‘fake’ by him, it has to be a ‘genuine’ one.

Ramdev was addressing the media on his plans to campaign against black money in the coming Assembly elections in five States. Seated along with Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy his right eye was blackened with ink by Siddiqui, a resident of Jamia Nagar in south east Delhi. He runs an NGO ‘Real Cause’ which is a petitioner in the Batla House encounter case.

A law graduate from Delhi University, Siddiqui had earlier contested the MCD polls as an independent candidate but lost. While Ramdev was speaking, the accused asked him his views on the encounter to which Baba did not respond. Agitated, he threw the ink on Baba’s face but was immediately caught and thrashed before police took him away. The man, whose shirt was torn and removed, was bleeding from his lips. There was lot of jostling around when police escorted the yoga guru away from the club.

Later, Ramdev’s close aide SK Tijarawala claimed that Siddiqui had got entry into the Speaker Hall of Constitution Club carrying a walkie talkie and posing as a security personnel of Ramdev. He also claimed that a bottle of acid was recovered from Siddiqui but before he could throw acid on Baba, he was apprehended. Recovery of acid has however been denied by police.

Ramdev, who immediately wound up the Press conference, later said he was not deterred by such attacks and would continue his campaign with full force against corruption.