High Court grants bail to Unnao rape survivor’s uncle

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Friday granted conditional bail to Mahesh Singh, uncle of Unnao rape survivor, in a cheating case registered against him at Kotwali police station, Unnao.

Singh, who is lodged in Tihar jail, New Delhi, will be released on Saturday. Justice Vikas Kunvar

Srivastav passed the order in his chamber. “I find force in submissions made by learned counsel for the bail-applicant. Therefore, the bail application is allowed,” the court said in the order.Singh, along with his wife who was killed in a road accident on July 28 last, has been instrumental in his niece’s fight for justice. The car in which the survivor, her lawyer and aunts were travelling on the day of the accident, was also provided to the lawyer by Singh.

“All cases lodged against Mahesh Singh were fake. He has been falsely implicated and repeatedly so ever since his family fell out with the MLA and his family,” said the petitioner’s counsel Prashant Singh ‘Atal’.

Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was then BJP MLA from Unnao’s Bangarmau constituency and was later expelled from the party, and his aides had raped the girl on July 4, 2017.

Sengar, his brother and three aides were convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304), criminal conspiracy (120B), wrongful restraint (341), voluntarily causing hurt (323) of the Indian Penal Code and under relevant sections of the Arms Act. Sengar was later sentenced to life in December last year.Policemen Ashok Singh

Bhadauria and KP Singh were also convicted for registering a false complaint (Sections 211 and 218) against the survivor’s father as well as for assaulting him in judicial custody.Sengar’s aides thrashed the survivor’s father and his co-worker on April 3, 2018, in Unnao, where he had gone to attend a hearing in the rape case. The survivor’s father died in the jail hospital five days later.