A Delhi court on Tuesday framed murder charges against expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar and nine others in connection with the death of the father of a woman who accused him of rape, PTI reported. Sengar is a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly and is in jail for the alleged rape since April 2018.
The man died on April 9, 2018 while in judicial custody for alleged possession of illegal arms, days after his daughter complained about the alleged rape by Sengar. The Central Bureau of Investigation later found the Arms Act case to be false. The agency is also investigating the rape as well as a car crash that injured the woman critically and killed two of her aunts last month.
The 10 persons charged with implicating the complainant’s father included Sengar, his brother Atul Sengar, three police personnel. The court cancelled the bail of the three police officials, PTI reported. The accused denied the charges and claimed trial.
The court observed that Sengar and his aides entered into “a criminal conspiracy” to prevent the complainant’s father from pursuing the rape complaint against him. “In the process, the father of the prosecutrix, his wife, mother and two daughters were voluntarily caused injuries...at the hands of co-accused, after preventing them from proceeding to their house,” the court said.
The judge also decided to club the murder case and the case of him being falsely implicated in the Arms Act case. The 10 accused, including Sengar, were charged with under Sections 302 (murder), 506 (criminal intimidation), 341 (wrongful restraint), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 193 (false evidence) of the Indian Penal Code and under Section 25 of the Arms Act.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to direct the Uttar Pradesh government to file a report in connection with the status of 20 cases filed against the rape complainant and her family members. The judges said that they did not want to widen the scope and interfere in other cases filed against them in Uttar Pradesh.
Last week, a court in Delhi had framed charges against Sengar and his accomplice Shashi Singh for rape. Sengar is accused of raping the teenager, while Singh allegedly kidnapped her. The counsel for the complainant had also told the court that the Central Bureau of Investigation deliberately did not name Sengar and his brother in the murder case of her father. Sengar has been in jail since April 2018 in connection with the rape case and was expelled from the BJP on August 1.
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