Charge sheet against BJP MLA in Unnao rape case

BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was on Wednesday charged by the CBI with raping a minor girl at his residence at Makhi village in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh on June 4 last year, officials said.

The CBI was handed over the case by the state government nearly 10 months after the crime after a self-immolation bid by the victim in front of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's residence and the subsequent death of her father in jail from injuries allegedly inflicted by the brother of the MLA in April this year.

In its charge sheet filed in a special CBI court here on Wednesday, the agency charged Sengar and his associate Sashi Singh with rape (section 3 and 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act), criminal conspiracy (IPC Section 120B), kidnapping (IPC sections 363 and 366), criminal intimidation (IPC section 506), the officials said.

The charges entail maximum punishment of imprisonment for life.

They said during the threemonth-long probe, the investigators found that the allegations levelled by the minor girl were tenable, prompting the agency to file the charge sheet against Sengar, a fourtime MLA who enjoys immense clout in the area.

The CBI has alleged that the 17-year-old girl was raped by Sengar at this residence at Makhi village of Unnao district, nearly 70 km from the state capital, at around 8 PM on June 4, 2017. The girl was again kidnapped and raped by a separate group of accused between June 11 and June 20, 2017.

The officials said the state police did not probe allegations against Sengar for the rape that allegedly took place on June 4, 2017, but had filed an FIR related to gang rape that took place nearly a week later in captivity. The police registered an FIR only on April 12, 2018, the day it was to be handed over to the CBI.

Both the cases are being probed by the CBI now.

The agency's probe depended heavily on the "consistent" statements of the victim who stuck to her charges even before a magistrate where her statement was recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC, they said.

The sources said the agency found in the probe that the version given by the MLA allegedly did not match with the corroborative evidence.

They said claims of his location on the day of incident did not match with the records of his mobile phone and other corroborative evidence and failed to provide a legally tenable alibi for himself for the day when the incident allegedly took place.