Manish Sisodia ‘mentally tortured’ in CBI custody, pressured to sign documents: AAP

AAP national spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj Sunday alleged that Manish Sisodia is being “mentally tortured” in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), adding that the officials of the investigative agency are compelling him to sign a “false confession”.

“Manish Sisodia is being tortured by the CBI and being pressured to sign the documents containing false charges framed against him. CBI has no evidence against Sisodia. They never mentioned any evidence is missing. They raided his residence but found nothing,” Bhardwaj said.

Sisodia, who has resigned from the cabinet and as deputy chief minister, was produced before the court on Saturday on the expiry of his five-day CBI custody, claimed that he was “sitting for eight to nine hours and answering the same questions again and again” and termed it “mental harassment”.

The federal probe agency does “not have evidence of dishonesty of even one rupee that’s why pressure is being created through torture so that he admits (to the wrongdoings),” Bhardwaj claimed.

Bhardwaj further trained guns at the BJP-led dispensation for “misusing” investigative agencies under its ambit to target rivals. He claimed that in the last eight years around “3000 raids” were conducted on the Opposition leaders, but only “0.5% of the accusations were proven,” he said. His remarks came hours after Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, along with eight Opposition leaders, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in connection with Sisodia’s arrest.

“It is unfortunate for a person who worked for poor children, whose work is being seen by the world, is being mentally tortured by the CBI”, he said.

Sisodia was arrested on February 26 for allegedly not cooperating in the investigation into the Delhi excise policy case and being “evasive” on questions from investigators. A special CBI court on Saturday extended the custody of Sisodia till March 6.