A Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislator, who the Uttar Pradesh Police claim is absconding, was seen attending a rally in Badaun.
Yogendra Sagar, the MLA from Bilsi in Badaun district, has a non-bailable warrant pending against him on charges of kidnapping and rape. But that does not stop him from organising and addressing public meetings in his constituency, reports Mail Today.
The Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CBCID) had submitted a chargesheet four months ago leading to a lower court issuing a non-bailable warrant against him on April 28, 2010. The police had stated in the court in August 2009 that he couldn't be arrested because he was untraceable and absconding.
But Sagar was present at a BSP programme on Tuesday (July 6) at Mission Compound in Badaun town where he also addressed a public meeting.
He was present at the meeting for nearly four hours even as Badaun district judge Anil Kumar Agrawal turned down his review plea against the non-bailable warrant on the same day, filed through one of his aides Om Krishna.
Eighteen-year-old Reoti Sharma (name changed), an undergraduate from Badaun, was kidnapped allegedly by one of the MLA's relatives on April 23, 2008 while she was on her way to college to appear in an examination.Her father Kuldeep Kishore had registered an unnamed FIR on April 24, 2008 and the police had found the girl from Muzaffarnagar railway station on May 16.
The girl in her statement before a magistrate had alleged that Sagar, his relative Tejendra Sagar, aide Minu Sharma and three others took her to several places including Lucknow and Delhi, kept her in a semi-conscious state by forcibly injecting a drug and repeatedly raped her.The police gave in to public pressure and registered an FIR against Sagar and two of his named accomplices on May 20, 2008. The father of the victim had alleged that the police were trying to protect the MLA and claimed that his daughter was found in a house belonging to a henchman of the MLA in Muzaffarnagar.
“ They were trying to sell her to a brothel owner in Muzaffarnagar,” he had alleged.Under public pressure chief minister Mayawati ordered a CBCID inquiry on July 7, 2008.In August 2009, the court issued a bailable warrant against him but he neither applied for bail nor appeared in court.Sagar continued to ignore the court even after the CBCID submitted its chargesheet in February 2009 and a non- bailable warrant was issued against him.While the MLA refused to talk to the media, senior superintendent of police D. K. Thakur expressed his ignorance about the presence of the MLA in Badaun and the case pending against him. “ I don't have any idea about the warrant,” Thakur said.
“ The MLA never appeared before the court. Even the review petition was filed on his behalf by one of his henchmen after 90 days of issuance of the non- bailable warrant. The police cannot dare to follow the court's instruction and arrest him because he is very powerful. So the police have submitted before the court that he is absconding,” Arvind Kumar Sharma, the counsel for the victim, said.
