Swami Chinmayanand, former Bharatiya Janata Party leader, a three-time Lok Sabha MP and a minister of state in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s administration was booked on Tuseday on the basis of a missing persons complaint for a law student who posted a video on social media alleging harassment by influential people.
The video was posted on the woman’s Facebook page on Saturday evening, the same day she went missing. The 72-year-old leader was booked under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
According to News18, the woman, a student at a law college in Shahjahanpur, had posted the video asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Adityanath for help. “A big leader of the saint society, who has destroyed the lives of several girls, has been threatening me with life,” the woman said in the viral clip. “I have all evidence against him. He has even threatened to kill my family. Only I know what I have been going through. Modi ji please help me, he is a sanyasi and is threatening that the police, DM [district magistrate] and everyone else is on his side and no one can harm him. I request you all for justice.”
Denying the allegations, Chinmayanand claimed that it was a conspiracy hatched by four men and the woman. He told News18: “It is an attempt to malign the image of the Yogi Adityanath government. I am being falsely framed just like Kuldeep Singh Sengar.”
Last year, the Uttar Pradesh government had decided to withdraw a rape case against Chinmayanand that was later rejected by a Shahjahanpur court. The complaint was filed by a woman who stayed at his ashram for many years. She had allegedly been held captive, raped and assaulted for several years. The police had filed a chargesheet in 2012, but Chinmayanand was not arrested.
Talking to NDTV, father of the girl alleged that her daughter and other girls at a college run by Chinmayanand's ashram were harassed by the BJP leader, and indicated that pressure being applied on him by the district administration to dilute the case against Chinmayanand.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday said the alleged harassment of a woman student by ex-Union Minister and BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand in Shahjahanpur appears to be a repetition of the Unnao case, reported The Hindu.
In a letter to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, a group of lawyers requested the court to take suo motu cognizance of the issue. They also mentioned the matter before the Bench headed by Justice N.V. Ramana. The lawyers requested the court to issue notice to the UP government to trace the girl and provide police protection to her family. "We as a society can't allow another Unnao case to happen", it said, reported Sifynews.
