2 BJP men charged with blackmailing Chinmayanand

The high-profile case of sexual harassment of a student, allegedly by BJP leader and former Union minister Swamy Chinmayanad, took an interesting turn on Tuesday when UP police charge sheeted BJP leader DPS Rathore and his aide Ajit Singh in the extortion case filed by Chinmayanand against the student.

Rathore is the chairman of the Shahjahanpur district cooperative bank and also the younger brother of BJP state vice-president JPS Rathore. He was allegedly present in Dausa (Rajasthan) when the Shahjahanpur cops found the 23-year-old law student on August 30, after she went missing from her college on August 24.

The Special Investigation Team, which is probing the alleged sexual harassment case filed by the law student against Chinmayanand and also the extortion case filed by Chinmayanand, zeroed in on Rathore on Sunday after questioning him for over 12 hours.

Ajit Singh is Rathore’s aide and brother-in-law of Vikram, who has been already booked in the extortion bid of Rs 5 crore along with the law student and another friend Sanjay. Cops believe that Rathore and Singh had helped the girl and her companions to reach Rajasthan.

The SIT chief Naveen Arora claimed on Tuesday, “The sexually explicit videos had been found in the laptop and pen drive of Rathore. Rathore and Ajit started demanding money from Chinmayanand in return for the videos. Their names are now being included in the extortion case.”

The law student, who studied in the Shahjahanapur institute run by Chinmayanand, in her complaint had mentioned that one Ajit Singh had taken the pen drive from her which contained the evidence of her sexual exploitation by the former minister.

Interestingly, Arora didn’t mention Rathore or Singh’s name in his address to media. Even the SIT press note did not mention them by name. These were revealed when reporters questioned the cops in this regard.