No Rape Charge For Chinmayanand But Student Charged With Extortion

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Swami Chinmayanand who has been arrested of raping and physically exploiting a 23-year-old law student, was arrested and sent to jail on Friday. The woman, however, was charged with extortion in a case filed by him, even as the SIT is probing the case arrested him. The law student is from Shahjahanpur, who has accused former Union Minister of sexual assault and blackmail. “I have nothing to do with this case of extortion from the start till date,” she said.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Swami Chinmayanand who has been arrested of raping and physically exploiting a 23-year-old law student, was arrested and sent to jail on Friday.
• The woman, however, was charged with extortion in a case filed by him, even as the SIT is probing the case arrested him.
• Police are now trying to recover the mobile phones of the law student and her friend Sanjay Singh, who is the key accused in the extortion case, and more video footage.

This case has been grabbing media attention for over a month now. The student accused him of assaulting her for a year but till Friday no arrest had been made. She has been charged with extortion now, based on a case filed by Chinmayanand's team.

According to Naveen Arora, Special Investigation Team Chief, “Swami Chinmayanand has admitted to almost every allegation levelled against him, including sexual conversations & body massage. Circumstantial evidences also being examined. He said he doesn’t want to say more as he’s ashamed of his acts.” (ANI tweet).

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Asked if Chinmayanand had confessed to the rape charges, Arora said, “Not directly, but there are many facts that lead . And when he (Mr Chinmayanand) said, ‘I don't have anything more to say, I am ashamed of my deeds,’ then that is more than enough."

Police are now trying to recover the mobile phones of the law student and her friend Sanjay Singh, who is the key accused in the extortion case, and more video footage. Arora said the law student and Sanjay Singh had made 4,200 phone calls to each other over the past year, as per the call detail records. During the same period, she and Chinmayanand made over 200 phone calls to each other, the officer added.

According to the Police, the BJP leader had deleted some data from his mobile phone, which contained “important evidence yet to be traced,” it was sent to an FSL for data extraction to establish further linkages, Arora said.

“In my 164 statement, I had told them I was raped and how it happened and everything. Despite that Chinmayanand was not booked under

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Chinmayanand's arrest comes three days ahead of the Allahabad High Court hearing in the case. The law student had gone missing on August 24 after posting a video on social media. In the video, she alleged a “senior leader of the seer community” was harassing and threatening to kill her. However, she kept the name hidden in the video, her father came out first and named Chinmayanand for allegedly raping and abducting his daughter. The Supreme Court stepped in after media reports about her disappearance. She was tracked down by the UP police six days later and produced before the Supreme Court, which ordered the Yogi Adityanath government to set up the special police team.

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