Unnao rape case worse than Nirbhaya?

Three weeks after threatening the 19 year old rape survivor that surviving members of the family would be framed in false cases and sent to jail, a truck with its number plate blackened hit the car in which she was travelling head on, killing her two aunts and critically injuring her and her lawyer, who was driving the car.

The spunky girl has been pursuing the case for the past two years against BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Senger, a Thakur. And the head-on collision on Sunday, July 28, looked suspiciously like a desperate attempt to silence her once and for all.

Suspicion was high because of several coincidences as the police called them. It was a coincidence that the truck belonged to someone who knew the BJP MLA and lived in the same locality. It was a coincidence that the truck was coming from the wrong side and was being driven at high speed. And it was a coincidence, said the police, that the truck had its registration number blackened.

It was also a coincidence, the police said, that police deputed to protect the survivor and her family had not accompanied her on Sunday to Rae Bareli. They conveniently stayed away, escaped the accident and the police claimed that they had been asked to stay back because the Swift Dzire of the lawyer would not be able to accommodate them.

• The victim, raped when she was just 17 and who is now 19, is fighting for his life in a Lucknow hospital. Head injuries, legs fractured and with blood reported in the lungs, she is said to be critical. Also critical is her lawyer in whose Swift Dzire she and her aunts had gone to Rae Bareli jail to meet her uncle.

With two of the car’s occupants dead and two others fighting for their lives, there is nobody to confirm what happened. But weren’t the seven policemen and women, at least three of whom were on mobile duty and were under orders never to let the victim out of their sight, guilty of dereliction of duty? Till the time of reporting, however, the police did not seem to be contemplating any action against the ‘missing’ policemen and women.

Lucknow ADG Rajeev Krishna told the media that the owner of the truck in his statement had claimed that the registration number was blackened because he was trying to evade the financier. The owner had failed to pay back the financier, the police officer explained, and hence his attempt to dodge the financier was not remarkable.

Even the Director General of Police, O.P. Singh, was quick to tell the media that the head-on collision looked like a ‘simple’ accident though the police would investigate the suspicion of foul play. Nobody asked him what the truck was carrying, details of its movement on Sunday and why it was being driven on the wrong side and at high speed.

The attitude of the state police and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in their handling of the case strengthen the allegation that they have tried to protect the powerful MLA. It was the refusal of the Unnao Police to register the complaint that prompted the MLA and his brother to tie up the victim’s father to a tree and assault him. And the badly injured man was then arrested by Unnao Police on the same day, April 3 last year, under the Arms Act for allegedly possessing an illegal arm.

Five days later on April 8 the rape victim, then 18 years old, and her mother went to the Chief Minister’s residence and tried to immolate themselves. This was picked up by the local media and the case gained wider currency when her father died in police custody on April 9. Even then the police did not arrest the MLA.

• The truck which hit the Swift Dzire on Sunday, July 28, had its number plate blackened. It was being driven on the wrong side and at high speed. The truck belongs to someone known to the BJP MLA Senger and hails from the same locality. But UP Police is convinced it was an accident.

It was the CBI which arrested the MLA on April 14 after an order by the Allahabad High Court. But curiously, the High Court ordered the same day that the MLA be sent to judicial custody and denied a chance to the agency for custodial interrogation, which the CBI is known to claim is absolutely necessary while investigating sensitive cases involving powerful people.

While the CBI filed the first charge sheet against the MLA for sexual assault etc. in less than two months, the agency or the police failed to implicate him in the death of the victim’s father. Nor was any step taken against policemen, who not only arrested the injued man but instead of taking him to hospital policemen are believed to have given him another beating in custody.

The ‘coincidences’ did not stop there. Yunus Khan, a grocer, who had witnessed the assault on the victim’s father, which had occurred close to his grocery, mysteriously died in August. While villagers were not aware of any illness, the family claimed he was suffering from a liver ailment and had died of a sudden heart attack. The rape victim’s family cried foul play and alleged that the prime witness to the assault on her father had been buried secretly. They also alleged that two days after Yunus Khan allegedly died, the deceased’s brother Jan Mohammad paid a visit to the MLA’s house.

Unnao rape case timeline:

• Alleged rape by BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar: June 2017

• Victim tries to commit suicide in Lucknow: April 2018

• MLA arrested after public pressure: April 2018

• Victim’s father beaten up by MLA’s brother but arrested by police: April 2018

• Victim’s father dies in custody: A day after arrest

• Allahabad HC transfers case to CBI court: May 2018

• CBI files a charge sheet: July 2018

• Victim’s brother arrested: November 2018

• Victim’s uncle convicted in 19-year old case: November-December 2018

• CBI judge transferred to Gorakhpur: April 2019

• Victim’s family threatened: July 7, 2019

• Victim writes to Chief Justice of India: July 12, 2019

• Head-on collision between car and truck: July 28, 2019

It took an ugly turn when the deceased’s widow accused the rape survivor’s uncle of having offered a sum of Rupees eight lakhs to Khan for deposing against the MLA. The uncle, later arrested and convicted in a 19-year old murder case, denied the charge and claimed that he was not in a position to lend anyone even five thousand Rupees and there was no question of him offering the sum of eight lakhs.

The family went on to claim that they had handed over an audio clip to the CBI, recording some of the threats the family had received from the MLA, his brother and his henchmen. But the CBI, they alleged, seemed to be protecting the MLA and may have destroyed the recording.

Raising another question mark on the role of Uttar Police are the 35 complaints the rape survivor’s family claim to have written to local police, apprehending threat to their lives. Shockingly, the Unnao SP admitted tohave received 33 of the complaints but went on record to state that no action was taken because they were found to be devoid of any merit.

• As many as seven policemen were deputed for the protection of the rape victim and her family. Four as static force and three mobile. The family, living in two rooms made of mud, is said to have asked the policemen and women to stay back on Sunday as there was allegedly no space in the lawyer’s car for them.

‘Hit and run’, admitted a police officer, has long been known as a popular method of eliminating inconvenient people and witnesses. They are either killed elsewhere and then dumped on the road before running vehicles over the bodies; or an accident is engineered to ensure that people get killed without arousing any suspicion.

Similar suspicion had been raised last year in June as well when a senior Indian Forest Service ( IFS) officer, A.K. Jain, was killed in a road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway. He was said to have been instrumental in filing a report alleging that one lakh hectares of land in Sonebhadra and Mirzapur districts of the state had been grabbed by outsiders. The report had alleged nexus between politicians and a section of officials.

The memory of that accident was revived this July when a village head and his henchmen gunned down 10 adivasis in Umbha village in Sonebhadra district when they resisted attempts by the headman to take over the land they have been tilling. But the ownership of the land had shifted on paper from a Trust to an individual before passing into the hands of the headman.

Police officials claim to be helpless in solving such cases citing difficulties in collecting verifiable evidence to back up the suspicion.

The Union Ministry of Road transport and Highways confirms that 413 people die in road accidents every day across the country. Uttar Pradesh leads the states with a daily death toll of 187 people.

It is unlikely that the ‘accident’ in which the Unnao rape survivor was all but killed would ever be investigated fully. But too many coincidences will keep doubts about the accident alive.

The truck driver Ashish Pal told the police, “It was raining. I applied brakes but the truck skidded and I lost control. The car coming from the opposite direction hit the truck.”

• During the last one year the family claims to have written 35 complaints to the Unnao Police complaining of threats by the MLA’s henchmen and relatives. The Unnao SP admits to have received 33 complaints but says police did not find any substance in them. They were rejected , he said, because they were unfounded and lacked merit.

There is a strange Fatehpur connection though. The truck driver and the owner of the truck are from Fatehpur. The truck is registered in Fatehpur and Arun Singh, the son-in-law of a minister in the Yogi Government, Agriculture Minister Ranvendra Pratap Singh, is the joint owner of the truck. Would such high-profile owners have financial problems to repay loans, which apparently forced them to blacken the registration number on the Number plate?

“This is an important link. The accident site is just 38 kms from Fatehpur district headquarter. The investigation will expose the Fatehpur link and once it is exposed the case will be clear,” a senior police official said.

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The Unnao rape case has served to expose BJP’s double standards. When the Nirbhaya case happened during the UPA government’s tenure in December, 2012, BJP then in the opposition had demanded capital punishment for the perpetrators and a special session of Parliament.

The present Union minister for Women and Child Welfare Smriti Irani had led the charge and in one of her tweets then had asked, “Wonder why the PM can address the Nation on FDI but not on the challenge the Nation faces with regard to women's safety. Guess FDI more important than rape.”

But both on Kathua and the Unnao rape cases, BJP leaders have been strangely silent. When pressed, they have reacted by saying that rapes should not be politicised. The same double standard extends to the accused. When the accused have BJP links, BJP leaders have been tongue-tied.

Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had wondered why BJP had not yet expelled Sengar from the party. “What is the BJP waiting for? Why has this man not been expelled from their party even when his name is in the latest FIR in the Unnao Rape Case?”

The answer, people believe, lies in his caste. He is a Thakur, the caste to which Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath belongs. He is an important member of the Thakurs calling the shots in UP politics, like law makers Raja Bhaiya, Yashwant Singh, Arvind Singh Gope, Akshay Pratap Singh and Dinesh Singh. They belong to different political parties but their caste affiliation unites them. Patronised by the CM they are known as ‘leaders of the T series’.

• BJP suspended Kuldeep Senger after his arrest last year. BJP trolls have tweeted that they believe the MLA has been framed. And the fact that he remains both powerful and active behind bars is borne out by the visit of BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj to the prison to thank the ‘ popular’ MLA for helping the MP win the last Lok Sabha election.

Not everyone in BJP is happy. “He (Sengar) does not belong to the BJP. He is an import from Samajwadi Party who was inducted into BJP at the insistence of Yogi just before the assembly election in 2017. If we could take action against our state vice-president Daya Shankar Singh for speaking ill against Mayawati what is preventing us from showing the door to Sengar,” a BJP leader asked.

The political influence Sengar wields in Unnao district is enviable. He is an MLA since 2002. He has been a member of all the parties including BSP, SP and BJP. He won his first assembly election from Sadar constituency in Unnao as BSP candidate. He then joined SP and won two subsequent elections in 2007 and 2012 from Bangarmau and Bhagwantnagar constituencies – both in Unnao district. In 2017 he joined BJP and successfully contested election from Bhagwantnagar.

Expelling Sengar from BJP will not deliver justice, will not bring back the rape survivor’s father and her aunts. The nation needs to debate on what her plight tells us about our country, our politics, systems, our police and on our judiciary.

Some prominent hit-and-run cases in Uttar Pradesh which aroused suspicion are as follows :

• When Mayawati was Chief Minister her government had filed cases of murder, extortion and against threatening witnesses against Independent MLA from Kunda Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiya. The case was registered by the then Circle Officer (CO) Kunda Ram Shiromani Pandey. Three years back he was killed in a road accident near Allahabad in a mysteries circumstances. The then Samajwadi Party government did not probe the case because Raja Bhaiya was then Minister in Akhilesh Yadav Government.

• In the Madhumita Shukla murder case in which former MLA Amarmani Tripathi and his wife Madhumani are serving life term, its Investigating Officer (IO) Yaghdutt Dikshit was killed in a road accident in Kanpur. The accident occurred just days before he was to give statement before the CBI.

• In 2014 in Deoria a speeding truck hit a Maruti car killing the lone occupant. The driver was an advocate going to the court to depose against a mafia turned politician of eastern UP who had illegally grabbed the mill.

• In the rape and murder case against Asaram Bapu two witnesses were killed in road accident in Shahjahanpur. Earlier, three people, including the cook, who were also witness were shot dead.