Law student, three friends booked for extortion

A law student, who accused BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand of rape, and her three friends were booked for extortion by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).

Sources said the SIT also booked the woman on charges of causing disappearance of evidence. The former Union minister was arrested by the SIT on Friday and sent to 14 days' judicial custody.

According to Om Singh, the counsel of Chinmayanad, they could not approach the court for bail on Saturday as local advocates were on strike demanding that Shahjahanpur be attached with Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.

The sources said that the SIT had on Friday registered a case against the woman's three friends -- Sanjay Singh, Sachin Sengar, Vikram alias Durgesh -- and an unnamed person (Ms A).

They said the unnamed person was the law student herself, but they had not disclosed her identity in view of the Supreme Court guidelines.

SIT chief Naveen Arora had on Friday said that the three friends, when questioned in view of a video clip in which they were purportedly discussing extortion, had accepted their involvement in the case.

They have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 385 (extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201(disappearance of evidences), 35 (criminal act done with a criminal knowledge or intention) and 67 of the Information Technology Act.

The three men were arrested by the SIT.

On her name being included in the extortion case, the woman said, "I do not know if the people who helped me escape from Chinmayanand were using me. I have nothing to do with the extortion case. I think all this drama is being done to dilute my charges of rape."