Man who attacked Delhi CM Rekha Gupta acted on ‘dream message from dog’, police chargesheet says

Rekha Gupta

Delhi Police have told a city court that the man who assaulted Chief Minister Rekha Gupta in August claimed he acted after a dream in which a dog standing beside a Shivling urged him to help suffering strays in the capital. The details appear in a 429-page chargesheet filed last month before Judicial Magistrate First Class Gaurav Goyal at Tis Hazari Court, the Indian Express reported.

According to investigators, the accused, Rajeshbhai Khimjibhai Sakariya of Rajkot, also had a history of agitation over animal issues. The chargesheet notes that in May he sat “on a hunger strike in Ayodhya over the issue of monkeys,” clashed with temple guards and was detained by local police.

Police say Sakariya had been watching “many videos on Facebook” of protests related to stray dogs in Delhi and believed that people were “holding the Chief Minister of Delhi, Rekha Gupta, responsible.”

Sakariya was arrested on August 20 after he attacked the Chief Minister during a Jan Sunwai (public hearing). At the time, his mother told reporters that her son was a dog lover who had “mental issues” and was distraught over the Supreme Court’s August 11 order directing NCR authorities to capture stray dogs and place them permanently in shelters. She said, “His mind is like that. He will hit anyone. He has hit me and his wife as well. He has mental [issues] but is not on any medication. He got so angry upon learning about the dog issue that he almost broke the bed, hitting it in anger.”

The chargesheet includes Sakariya’s own account of the days leading up to the assault. It states he told police: “One night I saw a dog in my temple [where many stray dogs live] in a dream, standing next to the Shivling, telling me that dogs in Delhi were suffering a lot.” He said that he then told his wife and a friend named Bapu, “I will go to Delhi and sit on a hunger strike, and if anyone stops me the way they did last time, I will kill them, no matter who they are.”

Sakariya then travelled to Ujjain, where he sought “Mahakal’s command” on whether to proceed to Delhi. He told investigators, “I made two slips, on one I wrote ‘yes’ and on the other ‘no’. I offered both slips before Mahakal and picked one. When I opened it, it said ‘yes’, which for me was Mahakal’s order that I should go to Delhi and sit on a hunger strike.”

The chargesheet says Sakariya’s wife refused to give him money, after which his friend and co-accused Tahseen Raza transferred ₹2,000 to him. Police say he travelled to the city, sought an appointment to meet the Chief Minister, and received a Jan Sunwai slip. Before the event, he allegedly took a fruit-cutting knife from a vendor’s cart near Kashmiri Gate and stayed the night at the Delhi Gujarati Samaj Dharamshala. On the morning of the incident, after spotting police deployment, he discarded the knife in a nearby empty plot and walked into the Jan Sunwai building.

Special Public Prosecutor Pradeep Rana told the court the investigation exposed a “deep-rooted conspiracy,” and that evidence “unequivocally demonstrates the act was pre-planned and pre-meditated.” He added that Sakariya had initially tried to “carry out some mischief” inside the Supreme Court premises but gave up because of tight security.

The incident unfolded shortly after 8:45 am. According to the chargesheet, “Around 8.45 am, it was the turn of the accused Rajeshbhai. He told [the] Chief Minister…that imposing a ban on dogs in Delhi was wrong, and…‘Now you will face the consequences.’ …He slapped her hard, grabbed her hair, pulled her down to the ground, and…pressed her neck with both hands with full force, repeatedly shouting that he would not let her live.”

The document adds that, “…If the accused had choked Smt. Rekha Gupta for a few seconds more, and if the PSOs had not acted swiftly, she could have been killed.”

Police have named Sakariya and others accused in the case in the chargesheet, asserting that the assault was intentional and pre-planned. An investigation is continuing.