In Unnao, A Fight For Justice In The Face Of Political Heft, Intimidation, And Massive Loss

On June 4, 2017, a 17-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district was lured into the house of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar on the pretext of finding employment, and was raped. She filed a complaint but was not allowed to name her assailant in her initial statement. In August of that year, she wrote an open letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath but to no avail.

For an entire year, the incident was suppressed. Then, on April 8, 2018, the survivor threatened to self-immolate in front of the Chief Minister’s residence, alleging police inaction. It was then that the incident grabbed media attention.

A few days before that, the woman's father was assaulted by Sengar’s supporters, led by his brother Atul. The police charged five men for the assault but also arrested the woman’s father for possession of firearms. Standing in front of Adityanath’s house, the survivor alleged that she registered a police complaint and a case against Sengar. However, the police did not take the investigation forward.

The survivor’s father died in prison a day later and this led to widespread outrage and protests demanding justice, receiving national coverage. Finally, an FIR was registered against Kuldeep Sengar. The case was later handed over to the CBI; Sengar was arrested and slapped with a POCSO case as the woman was a minor at the time of the incident. His brother and supporters were arrested, charged with murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

But the story did not end there.

On July 17, 2019, the survivor’s family wrote to the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi mentioning threat to their life from Sengar and his men. A week later, when she was travelling to Rae Bareilly with two of her aunts and her lawyer, an over-speeding truck rammed into their car, killing both the aunts and seriously injuring the lawyer and the survivor. The truck had a blackened number plate.

This led to wide suspicion of a conspiracy by Sengar and his men to eliminate the witness and her family. Protests were staged outside the Uttar Pradesh Bhavan, demanding justice for the rape survivor and slamming the state government’s "laxity" in dealing with the case.

The BJP faced serious criticism for not expelling Sengar despite all these allegations against him. He was expelled only in August 2019 after the Supreme Court took cognisance of the letter.

On August 1, 2019, the apex court directed that the survivor, her mother, and other members of the family be provided security by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). In December that year, Sengar was sentenced to jail for the "remainder of his natural biological life" in the rape case. Further, he was found "guilty of culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy in her father's death" in March 2020.