New Delhi: One day after the Allahabad high court questioned the Uttar Pradesh government’s approach in handling the Unnao rape case and why the accused BJP MLA, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, had not been arrested even after an FIR, the court asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to arrest, and not just detain, the MLA accused of raping a teenager from Unnao district in June 2017.
A bench comprising Chief Justice D.B. Bhosale and Justice Suneet Kumar gave the direction to the agency after the counsel for the Uttar Pradesh government informed it that Sengar has been detained for interrogation and not arrested yet.
The court also said that it would monitor the investigation and asked the agency to submit a status report by May 2.
#UnnaoCase : Allahabad High Court has asked for a progress report by May 2 and that the court will monitor the probe. Court also said the MLA should be arrested and not just detained
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 13, 2018
The CBI, which has registered three separate cases in connection with the alleged rape of the minor girl, had detained Sengar early Friday morning for questioning. The BJP MLA has been charged under the stringent POCSO Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code dealing with rape. He is currently at the CBI offices in Lucknow.
The case, which has caught the attention of the nation alongside the gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old in Jammu’s Kathua, has three sides to it: the rape of the minor, the custodial death of her father, and and an Arms Act case that was slapped against her father for which he was arrested by local police.
The teenager had accused Sengar and some of his aides of raping her in June 2017. To get the chief minister’s attention, on April 8, she tried to commit suicide outside Yogi Adityanath’s house in Lucknow.
Her father, Pappu Singh, who was in judicial custody after he got into a fight with the MLA’s brother, died on April 9. The distraught teenager had charged that her father “killed at the behest of the BJP MLA” inside the jail so that he wouldn’t rake up more trouble for them.
According to the post mortem report, he died due to shock and septicaemia. According to NDTV, the post mortem report highlights 14 injuries, including abrasions, contusions and bruises. “The postmortem report of the 55-year-old listed multiple abrasions near abdomen, buttocks, thighs, above and below knee joints and arms. It, however, listed blood poisoning due to perforation of colon as the cause of death. Perforation of colon, which is a part of intestines, can be caused by a number of diseases. It can also be caused by blunt trauma to the abdomen or a knife or gunshot wound,” the report reads.
On Tuesday, the police arrested the MLA’s brother Atul Sengar and four others for assaulting the man. Four accused – Sonu, Baua, Vinit and Shailu – named in the FIR registered on April 4 for beating up Pappu have also been arrested.
“It’s a conspiracy hatched by my political opponents to damage my reputation… I have no problems with any probe. Let a probe be conducted, and the guilty be given the stringent punishment. If I am found guilty in the probe, I am ready to face the punishment,” Sengar told PTI a few days ago.
“My husband is innocent and it is my request that he should not be called a rapist. He has been in politics for the past 15 years and has been serving the society and people,” Sengar’s wife Sangeeta told the press, in defence of her husband.
“We demand that a narco test be conducted on my husband and the girl as well as her uncle. This will help in ascertaining the truth and presenting the correct picture,” she said.
She said her daughters are being unable to concentrate on their studies in the wake of this incident.
(With inputs from PTI)