Kejriwal calls for attacker's release

Social activist Arvind Kejriwal, who on Tuesday was attacked with a slipper has appealed that the assaulter should be released.

"Police must release the attacker. If he hurled the slipper, we have to sit with him and talk peacefully, we shouldn´t attack him back. We should be prepared as attacks will happen. We should be tolerant to anyone who wants to insult us," Kejriwal said.

"I just want to appeal to the public to not fall into any political plot and to join hands with us in this moment. This is a golden opportunity to get rid of corruption from our country," he added.

The attacker identified as Jitendra Pathak, of Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested while Kejriwal, who was getting off the stage at a public event in Lucknow when he was attacked, was not injured, media reports said.

The assault came within days of a violent attack on his associate and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan.

Kejriwal, along with Bhushan and others, is part of the core team of septuagenarian self-styled Gandhian social activist Anna Hazare's followers who lead a nationwide campaign against corruption to pressure the government on expediting the adoption of a tough ant-graft law, the Lokpal Bill.

Pathak, who has claimed he is not affiliated to any political party but is purportedly close to the opposition BJP and also appears in rallies of the ruling Congress party, holds the activist responsible for "misleading people on the issue of corruption", media reports said.

The assault, that came on a day when Kejriwal, along with Hazare, was honoured as the Indian of the Year by a private news network, drew condemnation from civil society activists, including Medha Patkar and former police officer Kiran Bedi.

"Arvind Kejriwal attacked in Lucknow, appeal all to stay calm. We are ready to face anything for Janlokpal (sic)," said Bedi on her Twitter page. She has called for an independent inquiry into the attack.

Earlier, Bhushan, the legal mind of the Anna Hazare-led movement, was attacked in his Supreme Court chamber on Wednesday during an interview to a TV channel, by three men from the little known group called the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena for favouring a referendum in Jammu and Kashmir

A day later on Thursday when a group of Hazare's supporters were protesting the assault in front of a court complex where the accused were being charged, they themselves were attacked by members of the extremist organisation and the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena's apparent ally Shri Ram Sena.

Police reportedly stood around without intervening even as Hazare's supporters, including an elderly man identified as Rajkumar, were brutally beaten up and kicked in their faces by young men in jeans

Condemning the attack, Kejriwal questioned the police's inaction and said, "They were not silent on their own. Police should answer under whose pressure they kept quiet. We apprehend that such incidents would be repeated in future."