BHOPAL: The tables were turned on Congress legislator Hemant Katare in a sensational case involving an aspiring woman journalist. The first-time Congress legislator was booked by the Bhopal police for allegedly raping the woman and for abducting her mother. While the rape case was lodged at the Bhopal Mahila Police Thana, the kidnapping case is with the Bajariya police station.
The dramatic development happened on Thursday evening, eight days after the woman was arrested by the Bhopal police crime branch for allegedly blackmailing and extorting Rs 5 lakh from Katara.
Katare represents Ater constituency in the Madhya Pradesh assembly.
Presently lodged at the Bhopal Central Jail, the 20-year-old woman had complained the DIG Bhopal alleging that she was raped multiple times by Katare at various places in Bhopal as well as a hotel in New Delhi between September 2017 and January 2018.
In the letter-cum-complaint addressed to the DIG-Bhopal, the woman alleged that Katare in collusion with the additional SP (Bhopal Crime Branch) got her framed in a false case of extortion and blackmailing.
“The woman’s complaint was forwarded for suitable action to Mahila Thana on Thursday, after which a case of rape, wrongful confinement and criminal intimidation has been lodged against the accused,” Bhopal Mahila Thana in-charge Shikha Singh Bais told The New Indian Express.
The case of abduction and extortion was lodged against Katara on the complaint by the woman’s mother.
The complainant alleged that on January 27 afternoon, unidentified men posing as Bhopal crime branch sleuths came to her and asked her to accompany her to police station for recording statements. She was allegedly taken into an MUV in which Katare was seated and later made to sign a piece of paper at gunpoint.
Congress state chief spokesperson KK Mishra alleged Katare was being framed in false rape and kidnapping cases at the behest of ruling BJP.