Pressured by ED to sign doctored statements during raid: Saurabh Bharadwaj | Delhi News

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NEW DELHI: AAP Delhi convener Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged on Wednesday that Enforcement Directorate officials pressured him to sign doctored statements, discarded his original testimony and replaced it with their version during an 18-hour raid at his residence on Tuesday.He further claimed that lieutenant governor VK Saxena had “hatched a conspiracy” to frame him. No reaction was available from LG’s office.At a press conference, Bharadwaj demanded a forensic probe of the laptop of an ED assistant director and his own home printer, claiming evidence of manipulation still existed there. The former minister said nothing incriminating was found at his residence and the raid yielded “zero results”.Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva dismissed the briefing as “pure drama”, alleging that AAP functionaries resort to theatrics whenever agencies question them over “corruption”.ED searched Bharadwaj’s premises and those of some private contractors as part of a money laundering probe into an alleged health infrastructure scam. Bharadwaj said two ED officers recorded his statement during the raid, asking 43 questions. Another officer, he added, found an affidavit filed by the health department before Delhi High Court, a public document, contradicting the FIR. “I asked them to attach it to my statement as evidence since it contained minutes of meetings and directions I gave to speed up hospital projects,” he said.He maintained that ED officers ignored this evidence and instead asked him to admit responsibility for delays. “All my directions are documented in minutes of meetings,” Bharadwaj said.Bharadwaj claimed that he dictated a paragraph to ED that the entire case was “fabricated and false”. He told the agency that he had evidence but would submit it only in court.According to him, after his statement was recorded, it was “sent somewhere”, and officers later asked him to delete portions. “An ED officer still has my original version in his laptop,” he alleged. Bharadwaj also said his family was made to believe he would be arrested after refusing to alter his statement. “This is how ED functions – using psychological manipulation, coercion and threat. How can ED dictate my statement,” he asked.Sachdeva retorted that AAP functionaries preferred “media drama” and “trial by press” over due process. “If they do not trust investigating agencies, they are free to seek recourse in court,” he said.