Lucknow: The case of missing law student from Shahjahanpur following alleged harassment by BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand has reached the Supreme Court after a group of lawyers filed a petition to the Chief Justice of India to take suo motu cognizance of media reports on the issue. A law student from SS Law College in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur has gone missing from her college hostel.
The Supreme Court lawyers said they didn’t want another ‘Unnao case’ to happen. Family members of the missing woman had filed a complaint blaming Chinmayanand, a former Union minister, for their daughter’s disappearance. A case was registered against the godman on Tuesday evening following the orders of Director General of Police OP Singh.
Chinmayanand has claimed that a conspiracy was being hatched against by four men and the mission woman and he had done no wrong. He told News18, “It is an attempt to malign the image of the Yogi Adityanath government. I am being falsely framed just like Kuldeep Singh Sengar (rape accused Unnao MLA now in jail).”
In a video posted on Friday, the woman alleged that Chinmayanand, the director of her college, was threatening to kill her and her family members as she had evidences that could land him in trouble. She sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s help. The woman has been untraceable since Saturday, a day after live streaming the video on Facebook.
Shahjahanpur Superintendent of Police (SP) S Chanappa said Chinmayanand has been booked under IPC sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation) based on the father’s complaint. “Our team is investigating. The woman’s father has been provided security,” he added.
The missing post-graduate student’s mother said she had last come home on Raksha Bandhan. “I asked her why her phone remained switched off so frequently. She said, ‘If my phone goes off for a longer duration, then understand that I am in trouble. My phone will go off only when it is not in my hands’. My daughter was going through a lot of pain and trouble but didn’t divulge much. She told me she was being sent to Nainital by her college administration,” she said.
The father of the woman on Tuesday said the 72-year-old BJP leader, who heads the Mumukshu ashram, was behind his daughter’s disappearance. He said Chinmayanand and ‘some others’ had sexually abused her daughter and other girls.
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh Women Commission on Wednesday sought a report from the Shahjahanpur district administration on the student's disappearance. UPWC Chief Vimla Batham also expressed her commitment to woman's safe return.
"We have taken note of the incident and sought a report in this regard from district magistrate and superintendent of police of Shahjahapur. We are awaiting report and will ensure that she returns safely," Batham told reporters.
Chinmayanand has been a three-time Lok Sabha MP and was a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. In 2011, he was accused of rape by an inmate of his ashram.
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