Ex-BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar charged with abduction, rape of Unnao teenager

Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the 52-year-old controversial Uttar Pradesh legislator arrested for rape of a teenager last year on court orders, has been formally charged by a court for her kidnapping and rape. A special court in Delhi, which had been ordered by the Supreme Court to try Kuldeep Sengar, has also charged the lawmaker under the stringent child sex abuse law.

The top court had last week transferred four related cases against Sengar to Delhi at the request of the rape survivor's family, which feared intimidation.

The rape survivor is struggling for life at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences or AIIMS after a car crash. Her family has accused Kuldeep Sengar of conspiracy to kill the rape survivor in the crash that they allege, was a pre-meditated murder. A truck had crashed head-on into the car that the rape survivor was travelling in last month, killing her two aunts. The rape survivor and her lawyer are critical.

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The court has charged Sengar and his accomplice Shashi Singh, who is accused of enticing the victim into going to the legislator’s residence.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had expelled the four-time legislator from Bangarmau in Unnao district this month after the Supreme Court took a strong view of the rape and allegations against the legislator. He had been suspended from the party in 2018 when the charges against him first attracted nationwide attention when the rape survivor’s father was killed.

The Central Bureau of Investigation, which was ordered to probe the cases by the high court, found that the legislator and his brother assaulted the father of the Unnao rape case survivor and framed him in an Arms Act case, in collusion with three state police officials and five others.