Victim records statement, SIT likely to file FIR
LUCKNOW:The 23-year-old law student, who has accused former Union minister Chinmayanand of raping her for more than a year, recorded her statement under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) before a local court in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur under heavy security on Monday. The SIT is expected to lodge an FIR on the woman’s statement before a judicial magistrate.
The woman was brought to the Shahjahanpur court around 11 am where she testified for almost five hours. Her statement will be examined by the investigation officer and a case will be registered according to the allegations made by the woman before a judicial magistrate.
An official privy to the probe, who didn’t wish to be named said, “The woman has accused Chinmayanand of rape in her complaint in Delhi. If she testifies the same before the judicial magistrate, the former minister will be booked for rape charges.”
The statement was recorded amid reports that the victim and her father have questioned the working of the police and SIT respectively. The father of the law student has alleged that the SIT has leaked footage from the video recording that his daughter gave them. “These videos were a part of the evidence against Chinmayanand and given to the SIT by my daughter. How could these videos be shared on a different platform,” her father told a section of the media. He added, “I will urge the Supreme Court to order a probe into this conspiracy.”
On Friday, the woman submitted a pen drive to the SIT and claimed that it had video evidence against the former minister. When asked as to why she did not handover the evidences earlier, the woman told a section of the media, “Earlier, I did not trust any investigating agency.” The woman claimed that she had a pen drive when she was in Rajasthan. She said, “I did not trust the SIT after a pen drive was snatched away from me in Rajasthan.” However, she did not reveal who took away the pen drive. The woman was found by police in
Rajasthan after missing for nearly a week fearing backlash over the accusations she made on Facebook. She said she feared for her life and that the first time she approached Shahjahanpur Police, the district magistrate compelled her family to withdraw the complaint after telling her father to “think about the consequences”. An official privy to the probe who did not wish to be named said, “If the pen drive was snatched away from her by cops, it can lead them to serious trouble.”