Expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar has been convicted of kidnapping and raping a young girl from Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao two years ago. The survivor was a minor then.
Sengar, a four-time MLA from UP’s Bangermau, was expelled from the BJP in August 2019.
The Tis Hazari Court in Delhi convicted him under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 5(c) and 6 of Protection of Child from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).
Another accused, Shashi Singh, however, has been acquitted of all charges.
Arguments on sentencing are scheduled for December 19.
The court pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over delay in filing the charge-sheet saying it prolonged trial against Sengar.
“Sengar was a powerful person and the victim was a village girl, not from a cosmopolitan educated area which led to delay in filing the case,” the court said.
Several cases were filed against her family members after she wrote to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the judge observed, and added, “I found her statement truthful, unblemished that she was sexually assaulted and under threat.”
The court heard the case on a day-to-day basis from August 5 after it was transferred to Delhi from a court in Lucknow on Supreme Court’s directions.
The rape case grabbed headlines when she landed outside Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Lucknow home and threatened to set herself on fire if she was not heard to protest her father’s arrest.
She said in her complaint that her father was thrashed by Sengar’s brother and was allegedly framed in an illegal arms case and arrested on April 3, 2018. He died in judicial custody a few days later.
In July this year, the car of the survivor was hit by a truck and she was severely injured. The woman’s two aunts were killed in the accident.
A local court framed murder and other charges against the MLA, his brother Atul and nine others in the case.
After the woman wrote to the then Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, the Supreme Court on August 1 transferred all five cases registered in connection with the Unnao rape incident from a Lucknow court to a court in Delhi with directions to hold trial on daily basis and completing it within 45 days.