Image Courtesy: PTI

The Shahjahanpur law student, who accused the BJP minister Chinmayanand of rape and sexual exploitation, has been arrested in the extortion case against her, merely a day after a local court agreed to hear her plea for protection from arrest.

She has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days. She was arrested from her house by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) police on Wednesday morning at around 9.15 am and taken for medical examination, as per the team. They added that she will be produced before the court later in the day.

On Tuesday, reportedly she faced questioning by the SIT set up by the Uttar Pradesh police under the directions of the Supreme Court. The 23-year-old woman was on her way to the court in UP’s Shahjahanpur for protection from arrest when reportedly, the police intercepted her, took her outside and made her sit in a vehicle, sources said.

On Tuesday, the court also rejected the bail application of three men, Sanjay, Sachin and Vikram who had been arrested on extortion charges filed by the BJP minister.

Sachin and Vikram were taken on remand for 95 hours for taking them to site recovery of a mobile phone allegedly used in making the extortion demand, sources from the team said.

As per the sources, the accused had told the SIT that they had thrown the mobile phone, which was used to make the alleged extortion call, near MehandipurBalaji in Rajasthan.

Earlier, the SIT had arrested the three on charges of trying to extort money from Chinmayanand and named an unidentified woman as a suspect in the same case. Sources also said, the SIT has also sent the Chinmayanand lawyer’s mobile phone, on which the alleged extortion message was sent, for forensic examination, the sources said.

The BJP minister and former union minister was arrested on last Friday, days after the law student testified in court and close to a month after the allegations first surfaced. The court has denied him bail and told him to approach the Sessions court.

Chinmayanand has been charged with “misusing authority for sexual intercourse” or “sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape”, according to his lawyer.

The law student had been trying to file a rape complaint for almost a month but the UP police refused to do so. Once arrested, apparently, he has been not charged with rape still. The only charges the police did file was that of kidnapping and intimidation, which the woman’s family had alleged after she went missing.

He was finally arrested a day after UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, at a press conference on his government’s half-way mark, claimed that women’s safety was a priority for him and crime had dropped since he came to power at the head of a BJP government.

The 23-year-old woman, a student at a law college that Chinmayanand runs, on Monday went to a court protected by over 50 police personnel and recorded her statement in the court of the chief judicial magistrate.

It is curious to note that in a case where sexual exploitation by a person in power is a much graver charge, the SIT is showing more keenness in attacking the student who alleged of such a conduct by the minister.

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