A court in Punjab’s Mohali city on Saturday issued a fresh warrant against Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tajinder Singh Bagga asking the police to arrest and produce him, PTI reported. In this case, registered last month, Bagga has been charged with making provocative statements, promoting enmity and criminal intimidation.

However, it was not clear if the case was also related to his allegedly provocative statements about Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for which he was arrested from his Delhi home by the Punjab Police on Friday. After a day-long drama involving three police forces, Bagga was allowed to go home late on Friday evening.

The warrant issued by the Mohali court on Saturday has directed the police to produce Bagga for the next hearing of the case on May 23. After the fresh warrant was issued, Bagga’s father told reporters it was clear that the Punjab administration wanted to charge his son in one case or the other, ANI reported.

Punjab Police petition adjourned till May 10

Earlier on Friday, the Punjab and Haryana court said that the petition filed by the Punjab Police seeking the release of its officials who had allegedly been detained in Haryana after arresting Bagga, will be heard on May 10, ANI reported.

After his arrest on Friday, as a team of the Punjab Police was taking Bagga to Mohali, it was stopped en route by the Haryana Police. This was after Bagga’s father filed a kidnapping case in Delhi against Punjab Police officials. In the evening, the Haryana Police handed Bagga over to the Delhi Police and the BJP leader returned home.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Police had filed a petition in the High Court seeking the release of 12 police officials allegedly detained illegally by the Haryana Police, according to Live Law. The matter was supposed to be heard on Saturday

However, the hearing has now been postponed to May 10 as a separate bench will hear the case, Additional Solicitor General Satya Pal Jain, the lawyer for the Delhi Police, told reporters on Saturday afternoon, ANI reported. He added that a Delhi court had allowed Bagga to go home after he was brought back to the city on Friday.

Punjab Advocate General Puneet Bali told reporters that the Delhi and Haryana Police have submitted to the court that they have not detained any personnel of the Punjab Police, ANI reported.

“Haryana Police says that they have handed over the custody of Bagga to Delhi Police and Delhi Police says that they have been handed over [the] custody by Punjab Police,” Bali also told reporters. “So, we will file reply on dichotomy in their replies. We will also take apt legal action,whatever required under law.”

On Saturday, the Punjab government filed two more pleas in relation to Bagga’s arrest, PTI reported

One of the pleas sought to make the Union government and the commissioner of Delhi Police respondents in the matter. The other petition sought court’s directions so that CCTV camera footage from the Pipli and Sadar police stations in Haryana’s Kurukshetra and Janakpuri police station in Delhi are preserved for May 6.

The case against Bagga

The complaint against the Delhi BJP leader was filed by Sunny Singh Ahluwalia, a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab unit.

Ahluwalia had complained that Bagga allegedly threatened Kejriwal during a protest outside the chief minister’s residence on March 30. During the protest, Bagga had allegedly told television channels that “he would not let Kejriwal live”.

The protest was held by BJP members after Kejriwal said that the makers of the movie The Kashmir Files should release it on video streaming platform YouTube so that everyone could watch it free of cost.

On Ahluwalia’s complaint, Bagga was booked by the Punjab Police on April 4 under Sections 153A (promoting enmity), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code on April 1.

Bagga was appointed as a BJP spokesperson in 2017 after he shot to prominence for staging violent demonstrations and posting provocative social media content. In 2018, Bagga had put up a poster in Delhi’s ITO, calling former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the “father of mob lynching”.