Fugitive Punjab AAP MLA Pathanmajra arrested from Gwalior

AAP MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra was arrested by the Punjab Police from Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior, more than six months after he escaped police custody in a rape case.

Officials on Wednesday (March 25, 2026) said Mr. Pathanmajra, the first-time MLA from Sanour in Patiala, was nabbed from Gwalior on late Tuesday (March 24) night.

He was brought back to Patiala, and will be presented before a court here, Senior Superintendent of Police (Patiala) Varun Sharma said.

On September 1, 2025, police had registered a case against Pathanmajra at the Civil Lines police station here on the charges of rape, cheating and criminal intimidation.

The case was registered based on a complaint by a Zirakpur-based woman, who alleged that the MLA misrepresented himself as a divorcee, entered into a relationship with her and later married in 2021 while already being married.

She accused him of continued sexual exploitation, threats and sending “obscene” material to her.

The AAP MLA had been declared a proclaimed offender after he failed to appear in this case. Patiala police had even issued a look-out notice against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA.

Mr. Pathanmajra had been on the run since September 2 in the rape case. He had escaped police custody when the Punjab police went to Haryana’s Karnal to arrest him.

Police had then claimed that gunshots were fired and stones were pelted by the legislator’s supporters after a police team went to arrest him in Dabri village in Karnal district, where he was at the residence of one of his relatives.

However, Mr. Pathanmajra had denied police claims of being involved in firing at cops and said he fled after learning that he would be killed in a “fake encounter”.

After he escaped police custody, Pathanmajra in last November appeared in a video interview with an Australia-based web Punjabi channel in which he claimed that he would “return home only after securing bail”.

Denying all allegations, he had then termed the case a “political conspiracy”, aimed at silencing voices that speak for Punjab’s people.

He had even targeted the AAP’s Delhi leadership, alleging that ministers and MLAs were not consulted over key matters.

In another video, Mr. Pathanmajra had alleged that he was being targeted for speaking out against Delhi-based AAP leaders and for holding an IAS officer responsible for the last year’s floods.

Punjab Police had formed several teams from its different wings including the Anti-Gangster Task Force to nab Pathanmajra. Police teams had earlier conducted raids at several places including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi to apprehend him.