'How much money have you got from Modi?' Somnath Bharti asks reporters

source - NDTV

Amid a growing controversy over his "midnight raid" last week, Delhi Law Minister Somanth Bharti lost his cool today and accused the media of taking money from BJP leader Narendra Modi. "How much money have you received from Modi?" he asked reporters who wanted him to comment over his lawyers' confrontation with Delhi Commission for Women members yesterday.

HERE ARE THE 10 BIG DEVELOPMENTS IN THIS STORY:

1. Before hitting out at the reporters, the minister had slammed the women's rights panel saying it was trying to defame him and threatened to take them to court. "The women's commission is political. Barkha Singh (DCW chairperson) is a member of the Congress," he said.
2. The Commission plans to meet Lt Governor Najeeb Jung today to demand that an FIR or a First Information Report be registered against the minister who failed to appear before it yesterday to explain charges that he and his supporters had mistreated African women during the raid last week.
3. Mr Bharti skipped the meeting and instead chose to attend a kite festival in the capital. To represent him, he sent his lawyers who had a public confrontation with the head of the commission, Barkha Singh.
4. Mr Bharti was summoned by the panel to explain his controversial "midnight raid" last week when, surrounded by supporters, he ordered police officers to raid homes rented by Ugandan women in his constituency, claiming that they were being used to traffic drugs and sex. Mr Bharti's supporters forced some of the women to give urine samples for drug tests.
5. Ms Singh said the panel's guidelines did not allow it to acknowledge representation by lawyers. "I will write a letter to the Lieutenant Governor and ask for the resignation of the Law Minister," she said yesterday.
6. Mr Bharti had earlier not appeared before the commission after two notices. The panel had warned that if he didn't respond to its summons for a third time, he would face an FIR.
7. During his "midnight raid," the minister had organized for cameras to accompany him; the footage shows him arguing with police officers who refused to arrest the women without warrants.
8. That confrontation provoked a two-day protest in the heart of Delhi by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party who say the encounter proves that the city's police force is indifferent to women's safety and ignores the state government because it reports to the union Home Ministry.
9. A police case has been filed against the Law Minister by the women; seven have testified against him in court; some of them have identified Mr Bharti as the leader of a mob that beat and molested them.
10. Mr Bharti's Aam Aadmi Party or AAP has defended him, claiming that in the unedited footage of his raid, he does not demonstrate racist behaviour, does not manhandle the women, and does not misuse his office as a minister.