Chandigarh: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, who escaped from police custody in September last year after being booked in a rape and cheating case, was arrested from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh.
Pathanmajra had allegedly fled from police custody on 2 September, 2025, during an operation in Karnal, a day after an FIR was registered against him at the Civil Lines police station in Patiala.
Apart from this case, the AAP MLA faces charges of escaping from police custody and firing on the police party registered in Karnal. Pathanmajra was produced before a court in Patiala and sent to a four-day police remand on Wednesday, Senior Superintendent of Police, Patiala, Varun Sharma told ThePrint.
The arrest comes within a day of the Punjab Police arresting Cabinet minister Laljit Singh Bhullar, in connection with the suicide of an official of the warehousing corporation. With the assembly elections barely a year away, the twin arrests are likely to be portrayed as the AAP government’s fairness in dealing with their own leaders.
A Class XII pass from the Bihar School Examination Board, Pathanmajra is a first-time MLA who defeated Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harinder Pal Singh Chandumajra by nearly 50,000 votes in the 2022 Punjab elections.
Varun Sharma told mediapersons Wednesday that Pathanmajra was arrested from Gwalior by a team of the district police after inputs were received about his whereabouts. He said that initially it was believed that Pathanmajra had left the country but persistent efforts led to the arrest.
The FIR against Pathanmajra was registered late on September 1, 2025, based on a complaint by a 45-year-old woman from Zirakpur. The case was registered within a day of the Sanour MLA publicly criticising his own government over its handling of the flood situation in Punjab.
According to the FIR accessed by ThePrint, the complainant alleged that she was in a relationship with Pathanmajra since 2013. She claimed that he misrepresented himself as divorced and married her in a gurdwara in Ludhiana in 2021. She further alleged that she later discovered he was married and, upon objecting, he threatened her with making her private pictures and videos public.
Meanwhile, posts from Pathanmajra’s official social media accounts claimed that the complaint dated back to 2022 and questioned the timing of the police action. The FIR, however, did not specify the earlier complaint date.
As for his dramatic escape, it took place after a Patiala police team picked him up from Karnal’s Dabri village allegedly but escaped while being taken to the local police station.
Sources said that as police attempted to move him, his supporters—travelling in two Sport Utility Vehicles—intervened. Shots were allegedly fired at the police party, with one policeman sustaining a bullet injury in the foot.
Another policeman narrowly escaped being run over by one of the vehicles. After a brief chase, one of the vehicles allegedly carrying his supporters was intercepted and a man arrested. However, Pathanmajra managed to flee in the second vehicle.
Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) in-charge Patiala, Gippy Bajwa, who was part of the team, later said in a video message that villagers and supporters “fired at the police party and pelted stones”, facilitating the Sanour MLA’s escape. A video of the recovered vehicle showed multiple weapons inside.
In a video message posted before his arrest, Pathanmajra raised a banner of revolt against the AAP’s ‘Delhi team’, saying he would support Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against ‘Dilliwalas’.
He accused the AAP central leadership of excessive interference in Punjab affairs. “You can register false cases against me and put me in jail, but you cannot silence me,” he said.
Later, BJP leader Fateh Singh Bajwa alleged that the AAP MLA had exposed pressure tactics within the AAP leadership.
In another video message, Pathanmajra claimed that the matter was already before the High Court and that two FIRs had been registered against the complainant.
But, AAP spokesperson Baltej Pannu rejected the political vendetta charge, stating that the action was based solely on the woman’s complaint. “In fact, he started speaking against the government after he came to know that the police are going to act against him.”
He confirmed that police teams had initially searched for Pathanmajra in his village before tracking him to Haryana, where he eventually escaped during the operation.
In a related development, Leader of Opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa termed the sequence of events a ‘comedy circus’. “From shielding him → to vendetta arrest → to escape, Punjab’s law & order has been reduced to a full comedy circus,” the Congress leader posted on X.
(Edited by Tony Rai)