LUCKNOW: Even as the Uttar Pradesh polls are moving into their final phase today, the Special Task Force (STF) of the UP police has arrested two more accomplices of rape-accused minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati in Noida, on Tuesday.
The two aides—suspended Amethi Lekhpal Ashok Tiwari and Ashish Shukla—of the absconding minister were held from Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway by the UP STF late on Monday night.
“Both the accused were picked up from Noida and brought to Lucknow for interrogation,” ADG (Law and Order) Daljit Chaudhary said in the state capital Lucknow on Tuesday. UP STF was brought into the operations following the Supreme Court’s annoyance over delay in compliance of its orders. Chaudhary has expressed confidence that Prajapati would also be arrested soon as a look-out notice and a non-bailable warrant had been issued against him.
RN Mishra, SP of the STF, said the two accused had come to Delhi in connection with some case and were returning to Lucknow when they were nabbed.
Earlier, Prajapati’s gunman Chandrapal was held in Lucknow. So far, three arrests have been made by the UP police in this case but Prajapati is still on the run.
Already facing the opposition’s criticism for failing to bring the tainted minister to books, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said the police were making all efforts to arrest the minister. He reiterated his government’s resolve to extend all cooperation to the UP police in compliance with the Supreme Court directives.
Responding to a query over the Governor’s letter which had sought his clarification over the continuation of the tainted minister in his Cabinet, the CM said he had replied to the Governor.
Akhilesh defended his decision to let the minister continue in the State Cabinet by referring to the Badaun and Saharanpur rape cases which, he said, turned out to be fake and no arrests were made then.
Prajapati, on Monday, failed to get a relief from the Supreme Court where he had filed a plea to recall its order for lodging an FIR against him in the case. On the contrary, the apex court had expressed unhappiness that its order on lodging of FIR against the SP leader had drawn a lot of political narrative in the poll- bound state.
Prajapati had been crying foul before going underground saying he was falsely implicated in the case by his political rivals as the “complainant was affiliated to the BJP”.