Delhi Police chief B.S. Bassi Wednesday denied an allegation by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor that a police officer had physically assaulted his domestic help during interrogation to extract confession about murdering his wife Sunanda Pushkar.
Bassi told CNN-IBN news channel that he checked with his officers about the allegations made by Tharoor and found that no physical assault had taken place.
"I had received an email. I had asked the concerned officers. Nothing of this sort was reported by them," he said.
In a letter to Bassi Nov 13, which became public Wednesday, Tharoor urged the police chief to take action against a Delhi Police officer who tried to implicate him and his domestic help.
Tharoor said in his letter that four Delhi Police officers interrogated his domestic help Narayan Singh for 16 hours Nov 7 and for 14 hours Nov 8.
On both days, Tharoor alleged that Narayan Singh was "repeatedly physically assaulted by one of your officers".
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"Worse, that officer used the traumatic physical assault to try and intimidate Narayan into 'confessing' that he and I murdered my wife," the former central minister said.
Tharoor recalled that he expressed his concerns to Bassi over telephone Nov 8.
Bassi admitted he had spoken to Tharoor over telephone but said Delhi Police believed in policing which was governed by rule of law.
"So in our policing, we have no place for strong tactics. Anything of this sort is totally unacceptable. In this case, when I checked with my officers, they found nothing of this sort," Bassi said.
Tharoor's letter became public knowledge a day after Delhi Police said that Pushkar, found dead in a hotel a year ago, was poisoned to death.
Pushkar, 52, died in mysterious circumstances Jan 17 last year. Tharoor was then a minister in the government of then prime minister Manmohan Singh.