Unnao rape victim’s uncle says MLA’s aides filed 5 cases to intimidate him

The uncle of the teenaged girl, allegedly raped by Kuldeep Singh Sengar in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao, has said he was slapped with fives criminal cases in less than a month last year by the aides of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislator “hell-bent”on destroying his family for taking him on.

“All the cases were registered at Unnao’s Makhi police station on different dates but according to the complainants, I committed all the offences on October 21. On that day, I was present in the village for less than three hours,” he said on Tuesday.

The uncle said Arun Singh, Vinod Mishra, Rajkumar Singh, Santosh Mishra and Shashi Singh, the woman who allegedly took his niece to Sengar’s house on the day of the crime in June last year, registered the cases against him. They also include three people, who have been arrested on charges of murdering the girl’s father.

“Arun Singh lodged a complaint against me for my Facebook posts against Kuldeep Sengar. Vinod Mishra alleged that I had shot at him twice for refusing to carry out propaganda against the MLA. Shashi Singh claimed that I barged into her house and assaulted her,” he said.

Sengar is a four-time MLA – once from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), twice from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and presently from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – and wields considerable clout in the Unnao region.

Another case of assault and intimidation was registered against the girl’s father, who died while in judicial custody after being assaulted by men purportedly connected to the MLA.

The girl’s uncle claimed Arun Singh is the son-in-law of Uttar Pradesh minister of state for agriculture Ranvendra Pratap Singh alias Dhunni Bhaiya.

The minister said the Central Bureau of Investigation was investigating the case when asked to comment on the allegations of the girl’s family that he was trying to shield his son-in-law.

“What else do you want? Should the probe be given is to some bigger agency? Is there any agency bigger than CBI? Let the CBI investigate the case,” he added.

The girl has alleged that she was raped by the BJP MLA at his residence on June 4 last year. Her father was booked by the police for illegal possession of firearms and put in jail this April after her family filed a case against the BJP MLA.

The teenager attempted self-immolation in front of the chief minister Yodi Adityanath’s residence on April 8 alleging inaction on the part of police in filing a case against the BJP member.

Her father died the day after, hours after he collapsed in prison, where he had been detained, of injuries he allegedly sustained after being beaten up by the MLA’s men.

The federal agency on Monday registered a fresh case against two more people to include charges of gang rape and kidnapping, taking the number of cases to four.

The first case, of rape, names BJP MLA Sengar and Shashi Singh. The second accused the MLA’s brother and others of murdering the girl’s father when he was in judicial custody. The third is against the victim’s father, who was arrested under the arms act and put behind bars by police in Unnao.

The BJP MLA was sent to police custody for seven days by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Saturday, a day after he was arrested by the agency.