The Delhi Police on Sunday summoned Rohit Joshi, the son of Rajasthan minister Mahesh Joshi, to appear before them by May 18 in connection with a rape case against him, ANI reported.
A 15-member police team had arrived at Mahesh Joshi’s home in Jaipur to arrest his son, but Rohit Joshi was absconding, The Indian Express reported.
“Police have informed his family members about the case and asked them to inform his whereabouts,” an unidentified police official told the newspaper.
A woman has alleged that the Congress minister’s son had raped her on numerous occasions between January 8, 2021, and April 17 this year.
The woman had alleged that Joshi deceived her by promising to marry her. She also alleged that Joshi took her photographs without her consent in order to blackmail her.
On May 9, the Delhi Police had registered a case based on the woman’s complaint. The woman had said she filed the complaint in the national Capital as she feared she would not get justice in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, according to The Indian Express.
Joshi was booked under sections 376 (rape), 328 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc. with intent to commit an offence), 312 (causing miscarriage), 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her for marriage etc), 377 (unnatural offences), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
Meanwhile, Mahesh Joshi said on Sunday that the police have not contacted him in connection with the case against his son, ANI reported.
“I stand by the truth and abide by the law,” Joshi, who is currently in Jaipur for a chintan shivir, or introspection meeting, called by the Congress, said. “I will fully cooperate in the police probe.”
The woman’s allegations
In her complaint, the 23-year-old woman said that she became friends with Joshi on Facebook after which he took her to Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan on January 8, 2021. During their first meeting, he allegedly spiked her drink and took obscene photographs and videos of her.
In another meeting in Delhi, the woman had said that they spent time at a hotel, where he registered their names as husband and wife.
“He then promised to marry me... but then he got drunk and abused me... He would beat me up and make obscene videos of me,” she alleged. “He would threaten to upload them and make them viral.”
The woman also alleged that on August 11, she found out that she was pregnant and Joshi tried to force her to take an abortion pill.
In her complaint, she stated that she kept quiet because Joshi’s father is a minister. Mahesh Joshi is the minister of public health engineering in the Rajasthan Cabinet.
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