Prajapati's reprieve shortlived, sent to custody in new case

The reprieve given by a special court to former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati in a rape case proved to be shortlived as a court here today remanded him in judicial custody in a separate case.
Prajapati and two of his alleged accomplices were yesterday granted bail by special judge of a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court Om Prakash Mishra here in connection with the rape case.
However, Chief Judicial Magistrate Sandhya Srivastava today sent the ex-minister to judicial custody in connection with the case lodged by social activist Nutan Thakur, wife of senior IPS officer Amitabh Thakur.

Nutan had lodged the FIR on June 20, 2015 at Gomtinagar police station in which she alleged that Prajapati had used his undue political and administrative clout to conspire with the then chairperson of state women commission Zarina Usmani and others to frame her and her husband in "completely false" rape charges and other allegations.
Police initially did not take action claiming that it was a false case intending to malign the minister. But, subsequently, it was reopened on the orders of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow in September 2015.
The CJM court today remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days till May 10 for interrogation.

In a related development, Amethi Superintendent of Police Anis Ansari suspended Munshiganj SHO RK Singh for trying to influence the probe into the rape charges against Prajapati, who lost his Amethi Assembly seat to BJP in the recent elections.

In more trouble for the former minister, the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) has ordered demolition of a building constructed by him on encroached LDA land.
"Prajapati had constructed a building in Lucknow's Salehnagar area in the vicinity of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) by encroaching upon LDA land. Orders have been issued to the former Amethi MLA to demolish the building within 15 days, else the LDA will bulldoze it and recover the demolition cost from him," LDA secretary Arun Kumar said.

An FIR was registered against 49-year-old Prajapati and six others on February 17 on a Supreme Court directive.
Prajapati was then a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh.
After being on the run for nearly a month, Prajapati was arrested from the Aashiyana area here on March 15 and was sent to jail for allegedly raping a woman and attempting to rape her minor daughter in 2014. The six others had been arrested earlier.
Prajapati had approached the Supreme Court to get a stay on his arrest. But the apex court asked him to approach the court concerned.

At the time of his arrest, Prajapati had claimed that he was innocent and the charges were a conspiracy to malign him.
The former minister had said that he was prepared for a narco test to bring out the truth and also demanded a similar test on the minor victim.
The allegations against Prajapati were raked by the BJP during the state assembly elections to attack the then Akhilesh government.
The Supreme Court order to file a police complaint against Prajapati had come just two days before the third phase of polling in the seven-phase state elections which saw Samajwadi Party winning only 47 of the 403 assembly seats while the BJP and its allies storming to power bagging 325 seats.

The BJP had accused Akhilesh of shielding his tainted minister, a charge refuted by the Samajwadi Party.