CBI charges BJP MLA with raping minor girl in Unnao case

| | Lucknow | in Lucknow

A day before the completion of 90 days of arrest of BJP legislator from Unnao, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charge-sheeted the MLA for the rape of a local minor girl. 

The rape took place at Sengar's residence on June 4 last year but the matter cauight media attention when the victim tried self-immolation outside the Chief Minister’s Kalidas Marg residence in Lucknow. 

Last Saturday, the MLA’s brother Atul Sengar was charge-sheeted for the murder of the rape victim’s father. The CBI did not name the MLA in the previous charge-sheet and said that his role in the murder case was under probe. Sengar was also accused for planting a revolver during the arrest of the rape victim’s father.

In the charge-sheet submitted in designated CBI court in Lucknow on Wednesday, Kuldeep Sengar and his aides Sashi Singh were charged with criminal conspiracy and other offences under IPC and Section 3 and 4 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) raltingto the rape of minor. 

The CBI sleuths found that the minor girl was raped at the MLA's residence around 8 pm on June 4, 2017. She was taken there by Sashi Singhon the promise of getting her a jopb. 

The agency alleged that the girl was gang raped by a different set of accused between June 11 and June 20, 2017, which was also being probed by the CBI. 

The CBI officials said that the local police did not register an FIR related to the rape by the MLA on June 4 but registered an FIR related to the gang rape. The role of doctors, police and district administration officials was under probe, the CBI charge-sheet mentioned.

A four-time MLA from Bangermau (Unnao), Kuldeep Singh Sengar was arrested by the CBI on the night of April 13. 

A video of the girl's father before his death had gone viral in which he alleged that he was mercilessly beaten up with rifle butts by the MLA's brother and his cohorts in the presence of police. The case caused huge embarrassment to the Yogi government, after which a CBI probe was recommended in April this year.