The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to produce before it the 23-year-old law student who went missing after posting a video about alleged harassment by influential people, on Friday, reported Live Law. She was found in Rajasthan earlier in the day.
A group of lawyers had approached the Supreme Court two days ago requesting for the case to be taken up suo motu. They compared the alleged abduction to the Unnao rape case. The Supreme Court was initially reluctant to entertain the plea, and asked the lawyers to file a petition in the appropriate High Court. However, it later assured them it would look into it.
The state government told the bench on Friday that it would take them around two-and-a-half hours to reach Delhi from Fatehpur Sikri, indicating that they can produce the woman in court not before 3.30 pm. The bench will speak to the woman separately, and then pass an order in an open court, reported Live Law.
Earlier, Additional Director General of Police Bareilly Avinash Chandra told Hindustan Times that the woman had been recovered by a police team “along with a young man”. The Uttar Pradesh police said in a tweet that necessary legal action was being taken.
Chinmayanand’s counsel Om Singh claimed the woman seemed to have been used to serve the interests of those working against the BJP leader. “She will be brought here and her statement to the police will clear the air and conspirators will be nabbed,” he told PTI.
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police OP Singh said Chinmayanand had filed a first information report against the woman for demanding Rs 5 crore. She even threatened to go for media trial, he told ANI.
The woman disappeared on August 24 soon after posting a video on social media in which she accused several influential people of harassment. Although she did not name anyone, a missing person complaint filed by her father named Bharatiya Janata Party leader Chinmayanand, who is the president of her college administration. The Uttar Pradesh police, on Tuesday, booked Chinmayanand on kidnapping charges.
The video was posted on the woman’s Facebook page around Saturday evening, the same day she went missing. The student’s father accused the BJP leader of harassing her, but Chinmayanand’s lawyer refuted the allegations, saying that it was an attempt to extort him.
Meanwhile, the BJP leader has reportedly taken a vow of silence and has taken refuge at his Haridwar ashram, 300 km from his residence in eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur. The 72-year-old former BJP MP claimed on Wednesday that he was being framed like Unnao rape accused and expelled BJP legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar. The BJP leader is a three-time Lok Sabha MP and was also a minister of state in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s administration.
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