Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal quizzed for nine hours by CBI

New Delhi : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was questioned by the CBI on Sunday for nearly nine hours in connection with the excise policy scam case, officials said.

The AAP chief, who arrived at the heavily fortified agency headquarters at around 11 am in his official black SUV, was taken to the first-floor office of the Anti Corruption Branch where he was quizzed by the investigation team, they said. Kejriwal waved to the waiting mediapersons as he left the building at around 8.30 pm after nearly nine hours of questioning.

"Want to thank CBI officials for hospitality, they asked questions in friendly, harmonious manner,' Kejriwal said. The chief minister had a lunch break during the day, they said. AAP leader Manish Sisodia was arrested on February 26 after nearly eight hours of questioning in the case with officials saying his answers were not satisfactory.

The BJP, which accused Kejriwal of indulging in theatrics to divert attention from corruption, has dared him to undergo a lie-detector test and said it was not the time for rhetoric but accountability. Kejriwal visited Mahatma Gandhi's memorial at Raj Ghat this morning and was accompanied by his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann and some cabinet colleagues to the CBI office. While he was being questioned, several senior AAP leaders were "detained" by the Delhi Police while they were holding a sit-in at Archbishop Road against his summoning.

The detainees included Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha, Delhi ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi and Kailash Gahlot, AAP spokesperson Adil Ahmad Khan, AAP general secretary Pankaj Gupta and some ministers in the Punjab government. "The Delhi Police has arrested us for sitting peacefully and is taking us to some unknown place... what kind of dictatorship is this?" Chadha tweeted.

"BJP suffers from chronic Kejriwal-phobia," he alleged. Mann, who also joined the sit-in, had left the spot before the AAP leaders' detention. "Around 1,500 people have been detained or arrested by police across Delhi for staging protests. Thirty-two Delhi MLAs and 70 councillors have been arrested in the city and 20 Punjab AAP MLAs have been arrested at Delhi border," AAP Delhi convener Gopal Rai claimed at a press conference. After arriving at the agency headquarters, Kejriwal was taken to the first-floor office of the Anti-Corruption Branch of the CBI, which is probing the matter. Senior officials of the agency remained present in the office on Sunday to keep an eye on the development, a normal course whenever a VIP comes to the agency, they said.

During the day, Kejriwal was offered a lunch break and he chose not to go outside the CBI office, sources said. The questioning was still continuing till 5.30 pm. AAP leader Manish Sisodia was arrested on February 26 after nearly eight hours of questioning in the case with officials saying his answers were not satisfactory. He quit as deputy chief minister of Delhi on February 28. "I have been summoned by the CBI today and I will give all the answers with honesty.

These people are very powerful. They can send anyone to jail, it does not matter if that person has committed any crime or not," Kejriwal said on Sunday. "Since yesterday, all of their leaders are screaming at the top of their voices that Kejriwal will be arrested and I think BJP has instructed CBI also that Kejriwal should be arrested. If BJP has given an order, then who is CBI? CBI is going to arrest me," he said.