(MENAFN- Live Mint) An Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator for Punjab, Harmit Singh Pathanmajra, who has been eluding authorities since 2 September in connection with a rape charge, has reportedly fled to Australia. This development follows his recent appearance in an online interview.

The situation has proven to be a significant embarrassment for the police, as the Sanour MLA remained at large despite raids being carried out on his various potential hideouts.

Patiala Police had previously issued a look-out alert against the AAP politician. Posters bearing the Sanour MLA's details were pasted outside his official residence, private house, and bus stand in Patiala.

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Pathanmajra's lawyers Bikramjit Singh Bhullar and SS Saggu had said they will soon approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court for the MLA's anticipatory bail.

Pathanmajra featured in a video interview on Friday with an Australia-based Punjabi web channel, in which he asserted that he would "only return home once he had secured bail."

Denying all the allegations, he labelled the case a "political conspiracy" designed to silence the voices that speak for the people of Punjab.

"In Punjab, ministers and MLAs are not consulted on key matters. Freedom of speech is being curtailed. After losing in Delhi, those leaders have now taken over Punjab, and they are ruining it the same way," he alleged, while expressing full faith in the judiciary.

A magistrates' court in Patiala has already instigated fugitive proceedings against Pathanmajra after he failed to appear in court regarding the rape charge.

The first- time legislator had previously managed to escape police custody when the Punjab Police travelled to Karnal in Haryana to apprehend him.

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Police had subsequently claimed that shots were fired and stones were thrown by the politician's backers after a squad went to arrest him in Dabri village, Karnal district, where he was staying at a relative's residence.

Pathanmajra, however, denied any involvement in the shooting and claimed he absconded after realising he would be killed in a "fake encounter".

Police had lodged a formal case against the AAP MLA at the Civil Lines police station in Patiala on 1 September, on charges including rape, deception, and criminal intimidation.

The case was registered following a complaint by a Zirakpur-based woman who claimed that the MLA misrepresented himself as divorced, commenced a relationship with her, and then went through a marriage ceremony in 2021 whilst being a bigamist. She further accused him of continued sexual exploitation, issuing threats, and sending "obscene" material to her.

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