Lucknow, January 13: Mayavati today ordered the arrest of her party’s upper-caste MLA Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi for allegedly raping a minor at his residence in Bundelkhand, seeking to defuse a gathering backlash and preserve the chief minister’s law-and-order plank.
A police investigation report had confirmed yesterday that the teenager, who was detained in the house of the MLA, had been gangraped by the legislator and three associates, state cabinet secretary Shashankh Shekhar Singh told reporters this evening. “The four had raped her on the night of December 11 and 12 at the MLA’s house,” Singh added.
Singh said the MLA and the three associates Rajendra Shukla, Surendra Netam and Rawan Garg would be held any time now as “the chief minister has ordered their arrest immediately”.
Sources said the MLA had already been summoned to Lucknow and detained in a guesthouse but police did not confirm the claim.
The Opposition, led by the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, had unleashed a wave of protests across the state over the rape. The protests are still continuing in various parts of Bundelkhand. Mayavati is keen to defuse the situation before her 55th birthday on January 15.
Sensitive to law and order the plank on which she had won the 2007 Assembly polls Mayavati today iterated that her government would not bow to pressure from anyone.
“But the Opposition has unnecessarily raised a hue and cry as they have no issue,” the chief minister said in a statement, glossing over the fact that Dwivedi is the fifth BSP elected representative to be accused of either murder or rape.
The 17-year-old girl from the Nishad community, one of the most backward castes in Uttar Pradesh, had alleged in a written statement submitted before a chief judicial magistrate on January 10 that she had been raped by the MLA and the three associates. Her statement has now been converted into a first information report.
The victim had also complained that she was booked in a false case of theft when she had protested against the sexual assault.
The girl continues to be lodged in jail because of this case. The case will come up before the court on January 16.
The girl had alleged that no action was taken against Dwivedi as local police were conniving with the MLA and his aides.
During the BSP’s three-year rule this time, five party representatives have run afoul of the law in murder or rape cases.
Mayavati had demonstr- ated her uncompromising stand on law and order first when she called party MP Ramakant Yadav to her home and got him arrested in June 2007 for encroaching on Dalit land.
The three other BSP legislators who were arrested by the Mayavati government are Guddu Pandey, Shekhar Tiwari and Anandsen Yadav. Shekhar Tiwari was arrested in 2008 for the murder of an engineer while Pandey was held in 2007 for rape of a college professor. Anandsen is accused of raping and murdering a law student.
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–Agencies–