Sengar, a four-time BJP MLA from UP’s Bangermau, was expelled from the BJP in August 2019
Delhi’s Tis Hazari Court, on December 16, convicted expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Kuldeep Singh Sengar of kidnapping and raping a woman in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh in 2017. The woman was then a minor.
Sengar has been convicted under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 5(c) and 6 of Protection of Child from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), according to news agency ANI.
The court had also framed charges against co-accused Shashi Singh in the case. Shashi Singh has been acquitted.
The quantum of sentence for Sengar will be announced on December 17, reports suggest.
Sengar, a four-time BJP MLA from UP’s Bangermau, was expelled from the BJP in August 2019.
The case was heard on a day-to-day basis from August 5 after it was transferred to Delhi from a court in Lucknow based on the Supreme Court of India (SC)’s direction.
The court had on August 9 framed charges against the MLA and Singh under Sections 120 b (criminal conspiracy), 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping or inducing a woman to compel for marriage), 376 (rape) and other relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
On July 28, the car of the survivor was hit by a truck and she was severely injured. The woman’s two aunts were killed in the accident and her family had alleged foul play.
Her father was allegedly framed in an illegal arms case and arrested on April 3, 2018. He died while in judicial custody a few days later, on April 9. The local court here has framed murder and other charges against the MLA, his brother Atul and nine others in the case.
The apex court, taking cognisance of the rape survivor’s letter written to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, had on August 1 transferred all five cases registered in connection with the Unnao rape incident from a Lucknow court in Uttar Pradesh to the court in Delhi with directions to hold trial on daily basis and completing it within 45-days.
The trial in the other four cases — framing of the rape survivor’s father in illegal firearms case and his death in judicial custody, conspiracy of Sengar with others in the accident case and a separate case of gangrape of the rape survivor by three others — are ongoing in the court.
(With PTI inputs)
