'Illicit affair' row: High drama as DCW member Juhi Khan quits, says Kumar Vishwas is being framed

There was chaos at a press conference called by the Delhi Commission for Women when a member of the commission disrupted the address claiming AAP leader Kumar Vishwas was innocent, being framed and resigned. “Barkha Shukla Singh is trying to gain political mileage from this case. I am resigning from the DCW,” Khan said, while maintaining that Vishwas was innocent in the “illicit affair row.” Khan proceeded to walk out of the press conference while claiming that Vishwas was being framed in the case. [caption id=“attachment_2229006” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  DCW chief Barkha Singh and member Juhi Khan. Image: DCW website.[/caption] Singh, however, claimed that Khan is member of the AAP and was always there to disrupt the proceeding. “She wasn’t called here by us, she was sent to disrupt our press conference,” Singh said. Earlier, the DCW had said it has issued fresh summons to Kumar Vishwas and his wife to appear before it so that the matter could be ‘sorted out’. “He is lying if he says he did not get the summons. We have the receipt,” Singh said. The DCW chief further claimed that the complainant (an AAP volunteer) was told that girls can be sold off for Rs 20 lakh. “The girl has received threat calls,” she added. The controversy relates to a woman who had earlier accused Vishwas of not rebutting “rumours” about an illicit liaison with her and ruining her reputation. However, in a press conference on Monday, she was seen being prompted by a certain Jagat Awana, who was a former Congress worker, giving the issue a political twist. When contacted, Awana pleaded innocence and said he was merely trying to help the woman. He asked whether it was a crime to help a woman in distress. “Sanjay Singh told the media that the woman was a BJP agent; so, when she was interacting with the media, I told her to clear her stand that she was not a member of any political party,” Awana said. He also claimed that the woman got in touch with him nearly a month back requesting his help to secure justice. “I wanted to help her legally and through other means. I asked her to talk to Kumar Vishwas and, later, to file a complaint with the women’s commission,” he said, adding that although he may have been a Congress member 14 years ago, he has at present nothing to do with the party. Vishwas, however, has lashed out at the media for carrying the story claiming it was politically motivated. “First, go to the husband who needs someone else’s character certificate for his wife,” Vishwas told reporters, when questioned about the controversy surrounding him, in which he was accused by a party volunteer of not rebutting “rumours” about an illicit liaison with her. “Why are you covering such stories? Don’t you have mothers and sisters in your family?” said an angry Kumar Vishwas told reporters. “First, go arrest those people who began spreading false rumours about the woman,” he said. Vishwas also called the whole incident the result of the BJP’s “dirty mind department” and urged the media not to pay attention to the allegations.