Punjab AAP MLA Harmit Singh Pathanmajra, who has been on the run since September 2 in a rape case, is learnt to have fled to Australia after his appearance in a video interview. The development came as an embarrassment for the police, as the Sanour MLA remained elusive despite raids at his possible hideouts. Patiala police also issued a look-out notice against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA.
Pathanmajra appeared in the video interview on Friday with an Australia-based Punjabi web channel in which he claimed that he would “return home only after securing bail”. Denying all allegations, he termed the case a “political conspiracy”, aimed at silencing voices that speak for Punjab’s people.
“In Punjab, ministers and MLAs are not consulted on key matters. Freedom of speech is being curtailed. After losing in Delhi, those leaders have now taken over Punjab, and they are ruining it the same way,” he alleged, while expressing full faith in the judiciary.
A Patiala court has already initiated proclaimed offender proceedings against Pathanmajra after he failed to appear in connection with the rape case.
Police had then claimed that gunshots were fired, and stones were pelted by the legislator’s supporters after a team went to arrest him in the Dabri village of Karnal district, where he was at a relative’s residence.
The case was registered based on a complaint by a Zirakpur-based woman, who alleged that the MLA misrepresented himself as divorced, entered into a relationship with her, and later married in 2021 while already being married. She accused him of continued sexual exploitation, threats, and sending “obscene” material to her.
