Unnao rape case: MLA's wife wants victim to take narco test

Lucknow: Sangeeta Sengar, the wife of Kuldeep Sengar, the BJP MLA accused in the Unnao rape case, on Wednesday demanded that the rape victim and her uncle be made to take the narco test even as the SIT began its investigations in the case.

Ms Sengar, who is also the head of the zila panchayat in Unnao, threatened to commit suicide with her two daughters if her husband was proven guilty.

The rape victim also threatened to end her life if justice was not done. “I fear a threat to my family and do not be surprised if we all get killed,” she told reporters. On a day when the SIT team, headed by ADG Rajiv Krishna, reached Makhi village and recorded statements of the victim and her family for almost three hours, an audio clip of the rape victim’s 50-year-old father emerged in which he is heard saying that the MLA’s brother Atul Sengar (now in jail) had beaten him up along with his security guards. The SIT said that it will take cognisance of the clips related to the case. Mr Krishna also said that the victim’s family would be provided full security.

“They have a relative in Delhi. Now it is their decision if they want to live here in Unnao or in Delhi. We have come here to investigate. I will send the interim report to the state government by this evening. All the angles are being investigated. There is no pressure on the SIT. It is working independently,” he said.

Supporters of the BJP MLA surrounded the SIT and shouted slogan in favour of the MLA. They claimed that Kuldeep Sengar was being framed in the case.

In Delhi, Rahul Gandhi, taking a swipe at the Prime Minister’s proposed fast over the non-functioning of Parliament tweeted, “The barbarism inflicted on a father seeking justice for his daughter in Uttar Pradesh has shamed humanity. Hope the prime minister will soon observe a fast over atrocities against women, failed law and order and increasing anarchy under the BJP’s watch.”

Sangeeta Sengar met UP DGP O.P. Singh on Wednesday morning. Talking to reporters after the meeting, she said that while her sympathies were with the victim, she was also confident that her husband was innocent.

“I want that the girl and her uncle should be made to undergo narco test. Even my husband should be made to go through a similar test. If found guilty, I and my two daughters will end our lives”, she said.

She also said that the victim had remained silent for almost nine months after the alleged incident and then suddenly decided to immolate herself.

“The girl has not been able to give any evidence against my husband, and yet my husband has been termed as a rapist by the media. The girl has slapped rape charges in the past, too, on one boy in her village”, she stated,

The MLA’s wife said that a proper investigation should be done, and if the rape charges are found to be false, then the girl and her uncle should be imprisoned.

The rape victim had attempted self-immolation outside the chief minister’s residence on Sunday. She claimed that she was raped by BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar in June 2017 and the police was not taking action on her complaint.

Her father, who was arrested on April 4, died on Monday due to bleeding and perforation in his lower intestines (probably due to injury).

The Allahabad high court, meanwhile, took suo moto cognisance of the case and ordered that if the victim’s father’s body had not been cremated, the cremation should be stopped. However, the cremation of the body was done on Tuesday itself.

The court has sought a report on the case from the state government and will hear the case on Thursday.