The law student from Uttar Pradesh, who went ‘missing’ for nearly a week, after releasing a video in which she accused BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand of sexual abuse, was traced in Rajasthan today.
The Uttar Pradesh police said the woman had been found with a friend and was being taken home. “In the Shahjahanpur episode, the girl has been located by Shahjahanpur police in Rajasthan along with her friend. Necessary legal action is being taken,” the police said in a tweet.
In Shahjahanpur episode the girl has been located by Shahjahanpur police in Rajasthan along with her friend.
Necessary legal action is being taken.— UP POLICE (@Uppolice) August 30, 2019
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police OP Singh has confirmed that the Uttar Pradesh police searched for her in many places across Delhi, UP and Rajasthan and used digital surveillance to track her down. She is hale and hearty. It seems she went out of her own will to various places,” DGP OP Singh said. This claim by police contradicts the apprehensions that the girl may have been abducted.
After the Uttar Pradesh police apprised the Supreme Court that the girl was traced in Rajasthan, the apex court asked the counsel appearing for the state to apprise it of the exact location of the woman within five minutes and also that by when she can be produced before it. The counsel for UP police informed the court that the girl was being brought back by police, and they had reached Fatehpur Sikri.
When the court said that the girl is in safe hands now as she is with police, Shobha Gupta opposed that by saying that she can’t be sure about that, and demanded that the girl be produced via video link. But the UP Police objected to it, saying as the girl has made allegations of sexual harassment, she can’t be named and can’t be brought before the camera. The police counsel assured the court that the girl is safe with police.
When the court was recording the statements, UP police requested that it should be recorded that the girl was found with a boy. But Shobha Gupta opposed recording that fact. The UP police also asked that the boy should be produced before the court, but the court refused that. The court asked the girl to be produced in court in 2-2.5 hours, and said that they will only talk to the girl, not the boy who was accompanying her.
The Court had taken suo motu cognizance of the incident after a group of lawyers had written a letter to the Court urging for the same. The matter was mentioned before the Bench headed by Justice NV Ramanaon Wednesday.
When the suo motu case was taken up for hearing today by the Bench of Justices R Banumathi and AS Bopanna, Advocate Shobha Gupta appearing for the girl, opposed the recording of the fact that a boy was present with the girl and the court agreed to not include his presence in the recorded statement.
The LLM student from the Swami Shukdevanand Law College (SS Law College) in Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh had released a video on social media on August 23, levelling allegations of sexual harassment against BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand.
In the video posted on Friday, the girl alleged that Chinmayanand, the director of her college, is threatening to kill her and her family as she has evidence that could land him in trouble. She asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath for help.
The student, however, went missing three days after the allegations were made. Recently, a new twist was added to this week-long matter. The girl was traced in New Delhi, along with a boy who reportedly demanded a ransom of Rs 5 crore from Chinamayanand.
A senior Uttar Pradesh Police officer had confirmed yesterday that a CCTV footage which had been retrieved from a hotel in Dwarka in Delhi establishes the presence of the victim with the boy, who reportedly made an extortion call to Swami Chinmayanand. Copy of the girl’s Aadhaar card was found in the hotel she had stayed. They had left the hotel before police had arrived there.
Earlier, Swami Chinmayanand had stated that he was being framed in the case as a part of a big conspiracy to malign the Uttar Pradesh government’s reputation. “This is a conspiracy against me and the girl in question is a part of it. There are four other boys who had earlier tried to blackmail me and extort money,” said the former Union Minister.
