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UP rape victim now accuses key witness of murder bid, rape
Ram Singh is the key witness in the rape case against Gayatri Prajapati and six others that was lodged by the woman at the Gautampalli police station in Lucknow on February 18, 2017.
The 40-year-old woman who had lodged an FIR against former Samajwadi Party minister Gayatri Prajapati for raping her and attempting rape with her then 17-year-old daughter, has now accused the key witness in the case of rape and attempt to murder.
On December 15, the woman lodged an FIR against five people, including Ram Singh, three of his family members and his friend Qamal at the Rath police station of Hamirpur, accusing them of attacking her and attempting to kill her. She also accused Ram Singh of sexually exploiting her since 2015.
Ram Singh is the key witness in the rape case against Gayatri Prajapati and six others that was lodged by the woman at the Gautampalli police station in Lucknow on February 18, 2017. The former minister was arrested on March 15, 2017 and has been in jail since then, with the case is pending in court.
Station house officer of Rath police station, Manoj Kumar Shukla, said, “The woman lodged an FIR against Ram Singh and four others for attacking her and attempting to kill her when she visited Singh’s house in Rath, Hamirpur, on Saturday (December 15). She alleged that the accused snatched her jewellery and voluntarily caused her hurt, insulted her and threatened her with dire consequences.”
The SHO said the woman mentioned in the FIR that she along with her three children was staying alone after separating from her husband. He said she also accused Ram Singh of sexually exploiting her on the pretext of marriage after she came in contact with him through a social networking site in 2015.
Shukla added that the police were trying to collect “concrete evidence” in favour of the woman’s allegations before making any arrests in the new case. “The woman’s medical examination has been conducted and we are in the process of recording her statement before the judicial magistrate,” he said.
The accused Ram Singh said the woman was framing him, his family members and friend in false allegations. “I am the key witness in the rape case lodged by her against Gayatri Prajapati and others. I stood by her against the former minister despite immense political pressure and now she is levelling similar charges at me,” he said.
Singh alleged the woman had turned hostile in the case against the former minister and was also pressuring him to backtrack from his statement.
He said the woman’s daughter, whom the ex-minister and others had allegedly tried to rape, wanted to pursue the case against Prajapati and had thus turned against her mother.
However, the woman’s associates, including her lawyers, refuted Ram Singh’s allegations.
The rape case against the former minister was lodged by the Lucknow police on the direction of the Supreme Court in 2017. The woman had mentioned in the FIR that she was gangraped multiple times between October 2013 and July 2016. She had said that she finally approached the police to register her complaint against Prajapati and his aides when they tried to rape her minor daughter. The woman ultimately moved the Apex Court, seeking justice, after the state police did not initiate any action against Prajapati, who was a sitting minister in the UP cabinet at the time.
