A woman in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun city has filed a rape complaint against Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Mahesh Negi, accusing him of sexually assaulting her multiple times between 2016 and 2018, PTI reported on Monday. Negi is an MLA for Dwarahat town in Uttarakhand’s Almora city.
The woman also claimed that Negi was the father of her child and demanded that a DNA test be done to prove her contention.
Uttarakhand Director General of Police (Law and order) Ashok Kumar confirmed to PTI that the woman’s complaint was filed at the Nehru Colony police station in Dehradun on Sunday.
The woman claimed in her complaint that she was Negi’s neighbour and had first met him in 2016 in connection with her mother’s illness. She alleged that Negi travelled with her to Mussoorie, Nainital, Delhi, Nepal and Himachal Pradesh and raped her several times.
The complainant accused Negi of raping her just a few days before her wedding, according to a copy of her first information report accessed by the Hindustan Times. She also claimed that Negi pressured her to return to her parents’ home. “Due to this pressure and threats, I then came to my parent’s home after a few weeks,” the woman said. “He [Negi] then asked me not to go back to my in-laws and forced me to lodge a false complaint of dowry harassment against my husband and in-laws. When my husband asked the reason behind it, I narrated my ordeal to him, following which he ended all relations with me.”
The woman added that she gave birth to a daughter on May 18 this year but a DNA test revealed that her husband was not the child’s father. “After that, I informed Negi about it but he refused to accept her as his daughter,” the woman alleged.
The complainant also alleged that Negi’s wife had offered her Rs 25 lakh to stay quiet. The MLA’s wife had on Friday filed a complaint against the complainant, accusing her of blackmailing her husband and trying to extort Rs 5 crore from him, according to Hindustan Times.
Uttarakhand Women’s Commission chief Vijay Barthwal said that she had received letters from the Almora Zilla Parishad chairperson and the complainant, ANI reported. Barthwal said the complainant suspects a threat to her and her child’s life. She said she asked the senior superintendent of police of Almora to investigate and file a report by August 29.
Barthwal said she had come to know on Tuesday that the woman was in Dehradun. Barthwal added that the commission will write to Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Arun Mohan Joshi asking him why a first information report was not filed in the case.
Uttarakhand Congress President Pritam Singh told PTI that the allegations against Negi were serious and a DNA test of the woman’s child must be done. “It is a serious matter that an MLA is being accused of sexual harassment by a woman,” he said. “As she has a child too. A DNA test of the baby should be conducted to find the truth.”
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