Shahjahanpur case: Cong delegation meets jailed law student's parents, alleges govt shielding Chinmayanand

A Congress delegation on Sunday met the parents of the girl student who has levelled rape allegations against former Union Minister Swami Chinmayanand, and is currently in jail.

"We demand a case should be registered against Chinmayanand. The girl who alleged rape and was arrested should be released. The government is standing in support of Chinmayanand. The rape case should be heard in a fast track court," Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Ajay Kumar Lallu told ANI.

The Congress leader said that the party will take out a massive 'padyatra' (foot march) from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow on September 30 demanding justice for the girl who is in prison in an alleged extortion case filed by Chinmayanand.

"I met with the victim's father in Shahjahanpur at their residence and assured that the Congress party will fight every battle to seek justice. The party has decided to hold a march tomorrow. Whatever the consequences, we will not back down...," he tweeted after the meeting.

Earlier, during the SIT interrogation, the student had accepted that she instigated one of her friends to send messages to Chinmayanand demanding extortion money.

After her confession, she was arrested and produced before the court, which sent her to 14-day judicial custody.

The law student went missing on August 24 after a video of her alleging that a person from 'Sant Samaj' had threatened to kill her and her parents went viral on the social media.

The student, who studied in a college run by Chinmayanand, had later testified before a local court that she was repeatedly raped by the BJP leader for over a year. She said that the accused recorded the incidents on camera and used them to blackmail her.

A local court in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur had on September 20 sent Chinmayanand to judicial custody for 14 days for sexually assaulting the law student. He was charged with an offence not amounting to rape, stalking and criminal intimidation.

Chinmayanand, who was the Minister of State for Home in the Vajpayee government, was admitted to Lucknow's Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences on September 23 after he complained of chest pain.