Chandigarh: Two days after he criticised his own party’s government over the flood situation in Punjab, AAP MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra was arrested from Haryana’s Karnal Tuesday morning in a rape case. But he staged a dramatic escape while being taken to a police station, with his supporters allegedly firing at the police team and trying to run over a personnel, leaving one of them injured.
The case was registered against the Sanour MLA by the Patiala Police within a day of him speaking out publicly against his own government’s alleged lack of preparation to deal with the flood situation in the state. The state is currently reeling under devastating floods.
In a video message posted on his Facebook page Tuesday before his arrest, Pathanmajra claimed the case against him is politically motivated. He raised a banner of revolt against the “Delhi team” of the AAP, saying he will support Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against the “Dilliwalas”. He asked Mann also to launch a rebellion against the party’s leadership in Delhi with the support of his MLAs.
“Other parties like the Congress and the BJP also rule in states but the level of interference that the AAP’s Delhi team does in Punjab is unacceptable,” said Pathanmajra. “You can register false cases against me and you can put me in jail but you cannot silence me,” he said.
AAP spokesperson Baltej Pannu addressed a press conference Tuesday, claiming that Pathanmajra’s arrest was the result of his “relationship” with a woman who had complained against him in the last week of August. He said the action against Pathanmajra had nothing to do with his having spoken up against the government.
“In fact, he started speaking against the government after he came to know that the police are going to act against him on the complaint given by the woman,” said Pannu.
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The complaint & the FIR
An FIR against Pathanmajra was registered at the civil lines police station in Patiala late Monday night based on the complaint by the 45-year-old woman who has alleged Pathanmajra has been in a relationship with her since 2013.
According to the FIR, accessed by ThePrint, the woman has claimed she was given the false impression that Pathanmajra was divorced, and he even went on to marry her in a gurdwara in Ludhiana in 2021.
She added in her complaint that subsequently she came to know that he was married and when she objected to the way she had been treated, Pathanmajra allegedly started threatening her saying he had objectionable pictures and videos of her which he would make public in case she complained against him.
The FIR was registered under section 376 (rape), 420 (cheating) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
The FIR does not give details about the date of the complaint, but according to a post on Pathanmajra’s official Facebook page, made in response to Pannu’s press conference, the complaint against him was filed in 2022 and the government had decided to act against him three years later.
Pathanmajra also said the matter was already in the high court and two FIRs were registered against the woman.
At his press conference, Pannu said, “The police went looking for him in his village (Monday) but he was not there after which his location was found to be in Haryana. Police went to arrest him in Haryana but we have been told that he managed to escape. A vehicle belonging to his supporters has been recovered along with weapons.”
According to the police, they found out he was at a relatives’ place in the Dabri village in Karnal, and a police team picked him up from there Tuesday morning. Police sources said that while he was being taken to the local police station, the villagers along with his supporters in two SUVs accosted the police team.
“The villagers and Pathanmajra’s supporters fired at the police party and pelted stones at them, helping him escape,” Patiala CIA incharge Gippy Bajwa, who had gone to arrest Pathanmajra, said in a video message.
Police sources also said one of the personnel received a gunshot injury in his foot, while the MLA, who was in one of the vehicles along with his supporters, also tried to run over the police personnel.
Police sources said they chased the vehicles and managed to apprehend one of the two. “We arrested his supporter Balwinder Singh and recovered weapons from the apprehended the vehicle. However, Pathanmajra managed to escape in the other vehicle,” said Bajwa.
Senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa slammed the government, saying law and order has been reduced to a “comedy circus”.
“Complaint was filed in September 2022 against @AAPPunjab MLA Harmeet Pathanmajra — yet @BhagwantMann’s govt did nothing. The moment he criticised Mann, police arrested him. Within hours, he ESCAPED. From shielding him → to vendetta arrest → to escape, Punjab’s law & order has been reduced to a full comedy circus.”
Complaint was filed in September 2022 against @AAPPunjab MLA Harmeet Pathanmajra — yet @BhagwantMann’s govt did nothing. The moment he criticised Mann, police arrested him. Within hours, he ESCAPED. From shielding him → to vendetta arrest → to escape, Punjab’s law & order has…
— Partap Singh Bajwa (@Partap_Sbajwa) September 2, 2025
Akali Dal spokesperson Arshdeep Singh Kler said the the Aam Aadmi Party was focused on playing politics instead of helping people affected by the floods. “A new narrative is being generated through action against Pathanmajra that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wants to work but it is the Delhi team which is not allowing him to perform his duties well. The reality is that both the Delhi and the Punjab teams have failed the state,” said Kler in a video message.
He added that the issue on which action has been initiated against Pathanmajra is already in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the state government has already told the court that there is no weight in the complaint against him.
In his pre-arrest video of Tuesday morning, Pathanmajra alleged the AAP’s “Delhi team” was acting against him because he had spoken up against them.
During a visit Sunday to the flood-affected areas in his constituency, Pathanmajra said he had been asking the government to allow people living next to riverbeds to desilt their land and secure their crop from the possibility of floods.
“But nobody bothered to listen to me despite me having made multiple visits to the office of the secretary of water resources and irrigation Krishan Kumar,” Pathanmajra told the media Sunday.
He said he was speaking against his own government because he had no choice left. “I do not like speaking against my own party but I am accountable to the people who voted for us and when I meet them they question me and are angry. So what do I tell them?”
BJP leader Fateh Singh Bajwa, who posted on X Pathanmajra’s interview to a TV channel in which he said his security had been withdrawn and that he was expecting action against him for his outburst against the Delhi leadership, said the AAP leader had “lifted the lid on the manipulative tactics of @ArvindKejriwal and @msisodia exposing how they silence voices of truth through pressure and intimidation.”
A class XII passout from the Bihar School Examination Board, Pathanmajra defeated Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harinder Pal Singh Chandumajra by a margin of about 50,000 votes.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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