HC FORCES BJP MLA FROM ‘DETENTION’ TO ‘ARREST’

Media outcry, anger in the streets force the government to come out of its political inertia. The last nail in the coffin was the Allahabad High Court’s clear directive: ‘ARREST HIM, DON’T DETAIN’

BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, accused of raping a 16-year-old in Unnao last year, has been finally arrested.

It took severe strictures from the Allahabad High Court -- which had sought the immediate arrest, not just detention, of the BJP MLA -- that brought the Yogi Adityanath government out of its ‘inertia.

The court was livid at the inaction and the reasoning of the State government. It had specially noted how the police had not acted on a rape complaint of the 16year-old girl but rushed to register false cases against her family, and how her father was thrashed "by the brother and goons of Kuldeep Singh" before being arrested "on a petty offence. ‘‘The disturbing feature of the case is that the law and order machinery and the government officials were directly in league and under the influence of Kuldeep Singh," the judges said, criticising the State’s law officer's approach.

The bench gave the specific direction to the CBI to ‘not detain, but arrest’ the BJP MLA after the counsel for the Uttar Pradesh government informed it that Sengar has been detained for interrogation but had not been arrested.

The direction came even as the BJP MLA was picked up by the CBI from his Lucknow residence in the early hours of Friday. An FIR was lodged against the MLA on Thursday under relevant sections of the IPC and POCSO, hours after he made a dramatic appearance outside the Lucknow SP’s residence but refused to surrender.

The judges also made it clear that they would oversee the probe from now on. Earlier in the day, in the face of the media outcry and the rap on the knuckles from the courts, Adityanath asserted that his government would not compromise on its policy of "zero tolerance" against crime and corruption. "The accused will not be spared, it doesn't matter how influential he is," he said.

The CBI has filed three FIRs. In the first, it has named Sengar and Shashi Singh, a woman who allegedly took the rape victim to the BJP MLA’s house.