Student files bail plea, kin seek rape charge against Chinmayanand

The sessions court will hear the student’s bail plea on Monday (September 30). The same day it will hear the bail petition of Chinmayanand, who was arrested last week, said government counsel Anuj Kumar.

Meanwhile, the woman’s family once again demanded the SIT to press rape charge against Chinmayanand. While the student had accused the former BJP MP of raping her, the SIT had booked Chinmayanand under IPC sections sections 354 D (stalking), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 376 C, which is usually applied in cases where a person abuses his position to “induce or seduce” a woman under his charge to have “sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape”.

“The SIT is trying to highlight only the extortion case so that our demand to lodge a fresh FIR of the rape charge against Chinmayanand does not get much importance. Before my sister was arrested, she was regularly speaking in public and before the media, rape case to be lodged against Chinmayanand, but the SIT never registered it… It is shameful that the SIT is helping the rape accused instead of the victim. We will fight the case despite all kind of pressure from the state government and its agencies,” said the law student’s brother who met her in the jail along with his mother.

Meanwhile, a delegation of All India Democratic Women Association (AIDWA), led by CPI(M) leaders Brinda Karat and Subhasini Ali, reached Shahjahanpur jail and met the student. Speaking to mediapersons, Karat said that the student appeared “frightened and terrified”. “The accused (Chinmayanand) is a very powerful person and the victim belongs to an ordinary family. She has displayed immense courage by complaining,” Karat said.

The AIDWA delegation also submitted a memorandum to SIT chief Naveen Arora, demanding rape charge against Chinmayanand on the basis of student’s statement given to Delhi Police. They also demanded that since important pieces of evidence that includes the student’s spectacles fitted with a camera with which she had shot videos of the alleged assault were found missing from her hostel room, an FIR should be lodged against the law college principal and other staff members for the destruction of evidence.

It is to be noted that the 23-year-old was a student of the law college which is run by a Trust of Chinmayanand.

The victim had alleged that the camera fitted spectacles used to film Chinmayanand has gone missing from her hostel room, which was locked by the police.

AIDWA members alleged that the government machinery was being used to “save Chinmayanand” and accused the SIT of harassing the victim and her family in an attempt to break their spirit. The police have distorted the investigation and are trying to shield Chinmayanand by not booking him for rape, the delegation of AIDWA members said.

The SIT, formed by the UP government on the directions of the Supreme Court, has arrested three youths, besides the law student in connection with the extortion case.

A day after the law student had gone missing after uploading a video on Facebook accusing Chinmayanand of sexual assault, the 72-year-old politician’s lawyer had lodged an FIR against unidentified persons for allegedly sending threatening messages to Chinmayanand’s cellphone and demanding Rs 5 crore.