Rape-Accused BJP Lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar Taken In For Questioning By CBI

New Delhi: Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the BJP lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh who has been charged of raping a 16-year-old girl last year, has been taken in by the Central Bureau of Investigation for questioning. He has been brought to the Lucknow office of the CBI, after it took over the probe on Thursday evening.

The CBI will investigate three cases filed against Sengar in Unnao, 50 kilometres from state capital Lucknow.

The BJP MLA has been charged under the stringent POCSO Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code or IPC dealing with rape.

The notice to the CBI to take over the Unnao case was issued on Thursday night, following which the probe agency in a matter of a few hours picked up the BJP legislator from his Lucknow home at 4:30 am.

Of the three First Information Reports or FIRs, the first has Sengar as accused in the rape case. The second FIR is on rioting, in which four locals have been booked, and also the alleged killing of the victim's father in judicial custody. Since the murder charge was added later by the police, it does not reflect in the central probe agency's FIR.

The third case pertains to allegations against the victim's father, who was arrested under the Arms Act and jailed by the local police.

Yesterday, the Allahabad High Court had come down heavily on the UP government, asking it whether it proposes to arrest Sengar over the Unnao rape case.

A bench of Chief Justice DB Bhosale and Justice Suneet Kumar, taking cognisance of the Unnao gang-rape case on a letter to the court by senior lawyer Gopal Swaroop Chaturvedi, heard the matter in detail. It will pronounce its order today.

The court also questioned the conduct of the police in the case.

The teen from Unnao has accused the legislator of raping her in June last year. Advocate General Raghavendra Singh, who was present in the court on Thursday, told the bench that on August 17, 2017, an application was sent to the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's office in which allegations of rape was made against the lawmaker.
 The application was then forwarded to officers in Unnao, who were supposed to act on it, he said.

All this week, Kuldeep Singh Sengar has strutted around denying the accusation, disparaging the girl and her family and hitting out at the media in the Unnao rape case. During that time, his brother Atul Singh was arrested for a brutal assault on the girl's father, who was not just arrested with severe wounds on his body but who died on Monday in custody. He "had not been treated properly", a Special Investigation Team has found.

On Wednesday night, Sengar made a dramatic appearance outside the house of the police chief in Lucknow, in a convoy of 20 vehicles. "I have come here because TV channels were saying I will surrender," he appeared to taunt reporters, insisting that he was neither a fugitive nor a rapist.