Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who was called by CBI for questioning Sunday morning in connection with the alleged excise policy scam, sought a week’s time to appear before the agency citing his budget duties.
Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio, was summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation and he was scheduled to visit the investigating agency’s headquarters, situated at Lodhi Road CGO complex, at 11 am. Before this, a CBI team visited the Delhi deputy chief minister’s office at the Delhi Secretariat on January 14.
Harpreet and her sister-in-law Jasmine sat next to each other, recalling the belongings that they lost along with their home. Pointing at one of their sofas and a wooden shelf at their makeshift refuge, they said, “They were damaged in last week’s demolition drive at Mehrauli, just like our lives.”
The two women’s families are among scores who have been uprooted following the five-day demolition drive by the Delhi Development Authority.
While L-G V K Saxena had ordered the DDA to stop the drive on Wednesday, many from the area are now homeless and have been taking shelter in gurdwaras, rented accommodations or homes of relatives. Some have also been forced to sleep in their vehicles in a bid to protect the articles left in the open following the demolition.
A few feet away from an Ashokan pillar, inscribed with Ashoka’s policy and Dharma in the Brahmi script, stands a tapering four-tier red sandstone structure rising from an octagonal base on the Northern Ridge. This is the Mutiny Memorial, built in the memory of those who had fought in the Delhi Field Force, both British and Indians, during the Revolt of 1857.
The structure is prolifically inscribed with written accounts of the revolt. The placard on the structure’s lowest tier read, “In Memory of the officers and soldiers, British and native of the Delhi Field Force, who were killed in action or died of wounds or disease between the 30th May and 20th September 1857.”
