The Samajwadi Party said the man is no longer a party worker.
Kannauj:
A 50-year-old former politician has been arrested for allegedly trying to rape a minor girl in Kannauj on Monday, police said.
The incident has also led to a political row, with the BJP hitting out at the Samajwadi Party with the claim that the accused was once a close affiliate of senior party leader Dimple Yadav, when she was the Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj.
The SP, however, has distanced itself from the row, saying the accused, Nawab Singh Yadav, is no longer a party worker.
Kannauj Superintendent of Police Amit Kumar Anand said, “Around 1.30 am, a call was received at the UP 112 service in which the girl alleged that she was undressed and a rape attempt was made.”
The girl, along with her aunt, had gone to meet the accused, who had called them on the pretext of securing a job for her, the officer said.
In her complaint, the girl said Yadav tried to force himself on her when her aunt had gone to the bathroom. But once she came back and saw Yadav in his innerwear, they immediately called 112, according to the police.
“Taking cognisance of the call, the local police and PRV teams immediately reached the spot. The girl was rescued and the accused, who was in an objectionable condition, taken into custody,” SP Anand said.
“On the basis of the complaint, an FIR has been lodged under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the POCSO Act. The accused has been arrested and further legal proceedings are underway,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, launching a scathing attack on the Samajwadi Party, UP BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi sought to equate the Kannauj incident with that of a recent Ayodhya rape case involving a minor girl.
Mr Tripathi said, “Nawab Singh Yadav is not only a small leader of SP, but he has also been (former) MP Dimple Yadav’s representative.”
“Samajwadi Party has always covered up such crimes under the policy that boys are boys and they make mistakes (‘they are boys, boys make mistakes“). First, it was Moid Khan of Ayodhya and Nawab Yadav of Kannauj. This is the real character of the SP, ” he said.
When contacted, Samajwadi Party’s Kannauj unit president Kaleem Khan said Yadav is not a member of the party.
“It’s his individual matter and the Samajwadi Party has nothing to do with it,” Khan added.
On July 30, the police in UP’s Ayodhya district had arrested Moid Khan, who ran a bakery in Ayodhya district’s Bhadarsa Nagar, and his employee Raju Khan, in connection with the rape of a minor girl.
In a statement in the Assembly on August 1, UP CM Yogi Adityanath said, “Moid Khan is from the Samajwadi Party and is a member of the Ayodhya (Faizabad) MP’s team. He has been found involved in the rape of a 12-year-old girl. The Samajwadi Party has not taken any action against him.”
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had urged the court to order protection for the Ayodhya rape survivor and said people trying to “politicise” the case must not be allowed to succeed.
Mr Yadav had also alleged that the BJP was rattled after its defeat in Lok Sabha elections, especially in Ayodhya.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
