Court orders custody until March 28 for Delhi CM Kejriwal

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of India's national capital territory of Delhi, has been sent to custody until March 28 after he was arrested for alleged corruption in the city's liquor policy.

Kejriwal appeared before a local court on Friday, which sent him to the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) custody.

The 55-year-old whose Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also runs Punjab state, was arrested on Thursday night by the financial crime-fighting agency ED for alleged corruption in awarding liquor licences.

His party has dismissed the allegations as "a desperate attempt to malign the image" of Kejriwal.

The arrest potentially takes one of the opposition alliance's biggest campaigners out of action ahead of the general elections to be held from April to June, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win a rare third straight term.

Kejriwal is a former senior tax official who won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, often called Asia's Nobel Prize, in 2006 for leading a right-to-information movement and helping the poor fight corruption.

He earlier ignored multiple summons from the ED that investigates money laundering. Three of his senior party colleagues are already in jail waiting trial in the liquor case.