LUCKNOW: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Lucknow police to probe the gang-rape and molestation case in which Samajwadi Party leader and former minister Gayatri Prajapati and his six aides are accused, filed a chargesheet here on Friday.
According to senior superintendent of police Lucknow, Deepak Kumar, the SIT has found the charges levelled against the minister and his associates prima facie true. On the basis of the SIT report, Lucknow police filed a chargesheet. The SIT, headed by Circle Officer, Chowk, Radhey Shyam Rai was formed on the directions of then IG and DIG on April 29, 2017.
A thirty-five-year-old woman corporator of Chitrakoot had accused Prajapati and his aides of gang-raping her and sexually harassing her minor daughter at the official residence of the minister here for two years. She claimed to have approached different police stations to get a report of gang-rape and molestation lodged but in vain. Finally, she petitioned the Supreme Court, on the directions of which an FIR was lodged against Prajapati and his six aides on February 18, 2017. Besides the minister, the other six accused in the case include Ashok Tewari, Rupesh, Vikas Verma, Chandrapal, Amerandra Singh and Ashish Shukla.
In her complaint, the victim had alleged “that she was introduced to the minister some three years ago at his official residence — 5, Gautam Palli — by Ashok Tewari. During her meetings with the minister, Prajapati offered to allot her a licence for sand mining. At one of the meetings, she was served tea laced with sedatives and was, thereafter, raped and was also photographed.