Unnao rape case: Did not arrest ‘mananiya’ MLA as case was being given to CBI, say police

LUCKNOW: An FIR in the Unnao rape case was finally lodged on Thursday and BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was named as an accused. A woman acquaintance was named as a co-accused. The police, however, remained non-committal on the arrest of the two any time soon. Principal secretary (home) Arvind Kumar, too, remained non-committal on the possibilities of their arrest.

Highly placed sources said the state government sent an official communication early on Thursday morning to the Centre, recommending a CBI probe in the rape case and into the death of the survivor’s father in judicial custody. Sources said it is for the CBI now to take a decision on the arrests.

CBI took over the case by issuing a notification on Thursday. It will probe three aspects of the case: the FIR lodged against the MLA under various Sections of the IPC, besides the cross-FIRs lodged after the April 3 clash between the survivor’s family and MLA’s brother Atul and his associates.

After the special investigation team headed by additional DG (Lucknow zone) Rajeev Krishna submitted its interim report late on Wednesday evening, an FIR in the rape case was lodged on Thursday on the basis of a written complaint filed by the mother of the rape survivor. In her complaint, she has accused Sengar’s woman acquaintance of taking her minor daughter away on some pretext after which she was raped by the MLA.

The mother alleges that the acquaintance was a partner in crime, saying that while the rape was committed, the accomplice sat outside the room. The complaint also states that the MLA threatened the survivor with dire consequence if she told anyone about the crime.

As per the complaint, the crime was committed on June 4, 2017. The FIR was lodged under Section 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping for purpose of marriage), 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3/4 of the POCSO Act.

The rape survivor and her family accused the police of shielding the MLA by delaying his arrest. “My father has already been killed inside the jail and now we are facing threats … I don’t know why the government is not ensuring the arrest of the MLA,” the rape survivor said.

Meanwhile, UP DGP OP Singh kicked up a row while briefing the media when he referred to the MLA as “mananiya vidhayak” (respected MLA). But he was quick to clarify that in no way this implied that the guilty will be spared.