UP MINISTER MOVES SC AGAINST RAPE ALLEGATIONS

NEW DELHI: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Gayatri Prajapati moved the Supreme Court on Monday against the top court’s order of registering a criminal case against him in connection with a gang rape and sexual harassment allegations.

Prajapati wants the top court to protect him from arrest and also recall its last week’s order. He termed the case against him as politically motivated, contending the petitioner before the court was a BJP party worker.

The UP minister said the top court never gave him a chance to place his side of the version before it. According to him, the UP state counsel also could not defend the case appropriately. He accused the alleged victim petitioner of misrepresenting the facts before the court.

On a petition filed by a 35-yearold woman from Chitrakoot, the top court had last week directed the UP police to register the case and file a status report within eight weeks. Prajapati has been accused of raping the petitioner when she met him three years ago. She accused him of taking obscene photos of the victim and threatening her to make them public. He allegedly kept raping her for the past two years.

Prajapati, however, has rejected the allegations, claiming it’s a conspiracy of BJP against him in order to distract people’s attention from the Assembly polls. The petitioner also complained that the leader tried to molest her daughter following which she approached the police for action against him. When she got no response then she moved the apex court with a plea to register the case.