LUCKNOW: Former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday accused the BJP government of sending the girl student, who had levelled rape charges against the former union minister Swami Chinmayanand, to jail.
"BJP has revealed its real face by sending the daughter, who mustered the courage to raise her voice against a BJP leader, to jail. Today every daughter, sister, and mother in the country is saddened by this shameless act and some people are saying 'Everything is fine in the country'. Condemnable! The slogan of 'Beti Bachao' too turned out to be a jumla after all," Yadav's tweet read.
Earlier yesterday, the SIT probing the Shahjahanpur rape case said that the law student was arrested after she affirmed that she demanded Rs 5 crore as extortion money from Swami Chinmayanand.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vineet Kumar had sent her to 14 days judicial custody.
Earlier today, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too had attacked the BJP over the arrest of the girl student.
"Unnao Rape case--Victim's father murdered, uncle arrested. The accused MLA was arrested after 13 months after much public pressure. An attempt to kill the victim's family. Shahjahpur rape case--- Victim arrested. Pressure on the victim's family. Police delayed the arrest of accused BJP leader and arrested after much public pressure. The charges of rape have not been framed on the BJP leader till now. Kudos to the justice system of BJP," Vadra tweeted on Thursday.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Naveen Arora, heading the SIT, said that during the interrogation, the student had accepted that she instigated one of her friends, Sanjay Singh, to send the messages to Chinmayanand demanding extortion money.
Singh, along with two others were arrested earlier this week on charges of extortion, the disappearance of evidence and criminal intimidation, among other sections. They also confessed to have made extortion calls to Chinmayanand.
The law student went missing on August 24 after a video of her alleging that a person from 'Sant Samaj' had threatened to kill her and her parents went viral on the social media. Chinmayanand's team, in turn, filed an extortion case.
"After her disappearance, call detail record (CDR) showed their location to be at one place. They all went from Delhi to Solan in Himachal to Rajasthan," he said.
The student, who studied in the college run by Chinmayanand, had later testified before a local court that she was repeatedly raped by the BJP leader for over a year. She said that the accused recorded the incident on the camera and used it to blackmail her.
Chinmayanand, who was the minister of state for home in the Vajpayee government too is in judicial custody in connection with the case.