Unnao rape survivor’s car crash was accident, not murder, says CBI; charges Kuldeep Sengar for threats

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed charge sheet against former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and others in Unnao rape survivor’s road crash case that killed her two relatives and seriously injured her.

But the federal investigating agency has dropped the murder charge against the accused.

Kuldeep Singh Senger has been charged for criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation while truck driver Ashish Kumar Pal has been charged for causing death by negligence, causing grievous hurt and rash driving.

When the CBI first took up investigations into the case, it had registered the FIR on the basis of the complaint lodged by the rape survivor’s uncle at Gurubakshganj police station of Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli.

The CBI could not substantiate the charge that the head-on collision between a truck driven by Ashish Pal and the car in which the rape survivor was travelling was pre-meditated and part of a conspiracy.

The CBI did, however, support the charge that the rape survivor and her family were facing threats from Sengar and his associates. Last month, the CBI told a Special judge that the 19-year-old woman, faced the highest level of threat.

The Supreme Court had intervened to transfer the trial to national capital Delhi on an SOS from the teenager’s family. The top court had also ordered security for the family and assigned a special CBI judge to hold daily hearings in this case. Last month, the judge held court at AIIMS where the rape survivor was recuperating to record her statement.

A four-time lawmaker, Sengar was thrown out of the BJP in August this year around the same time that the Supreme Court stepped in.

In June 2017, she had accused Sengar, who represents Bangarmau assembly seat, of raping her when she went to him to seek help in getting a job. Local police officers, however, blocked her efforts to file an FIR for nearly a year. The case hit national headlines when the teenager attempted to set herself afire to demand registering the case. The state police was finally forced to arrest Sengar under intense pressure from the high court and transfer the probe to the CBI.