Unnao rape victim approaches CBI demanding FIR against IO for ‘colluding’ with Sengar

The victim of the 2017 Unnao rape case, in which former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was convicted, has approached the CBI, demanding registration of an FIR against the then investigating officer for “joining hands” with the former MLA.

The woman also claimed that she and her family were facing threats from various quarters.

The development comes amid growing frustration in many quarters after the Delhi High Court recently granted conditional bail to Sengar and suspended his life sentence in the case.

However, Sengar will remain in jail as he is also serving a 10-year sentence in a case involving the custodial death of the rape victim’s father.

In her complaint, the victim alleged that the investigating officer conducted the investigation dishonestly, maliciously and in a manner so that Sengar and other accused could benefit from “deliberate omission and manipulation of the facts presented”, and secure a favorable outcome.

She alleged that the officer used forged school documents in the charge sheet, showing her as a government school student and also showing a different date of birth, when in reality, she had never taken admission in that school.

The victim also claimed that the officer had mentioned in the charge sheet that she was using the mobile phone of a woman named Heera Singh, even though she had never used that phone.

Besides, several statements have been wrongly included in the charge sheet, he claimed.

In the six-page complaint, the victim, who was a minor at the time of the rape in 2017, claimed that she had filed a complaint earlier too, but no action was taken against the officer.

Citing the trial court order convicting Sengar, where the court questioned the recording of her statement by the investigating officer, she accused the officer of being “in collusion” with the accused to shield them (Senger and others) from prosecution.

CBI had challenged the trial court’s observations in the Delhi High Court.

During the trial, the CBI had said that the investigating officer’s claims on the mobile phone used by the victim were “mere opinion” and not “conclusive evidence”, and on that basis alone, “no impression can be drawn that the officer was favoring the accused party”.

The court had said, “There is more to the story than meets the eye, as it appears that the investigation was not conducted impartially, and the approach of the IO/CBI gives the impression that the recording of the girl’s statement was done with the objective of discrediting the statement of the victim/survivor and her family members in the present case.”