As the Unnao rape victim battled for life following a car crash, the Opposition stepped up its attack against the BJP on Tuesday, accusing the ruling party of giving its MLA political protection.
For God's sake, Mr. Prime Minister, divest this criminal and his brother of the political power your party is giving them. It's still not too late," Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted on the issue that rocked Parliament as well.
The Congress, the BSP and the SP accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of extending patronage" to MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was charged with raping a minor in 2017.
Sengar, already in jail, and nine others were booked for murder on Monday, a day after the car in which the rape victim, now 19, was hit by speeding truck in Rae Bareli, killing two relatives and leaving her and a lawyer critically injured.
A letter written to the Chief Justice of India by the victim and two family members just days before the car crash, expressing a threat to their lives, has also surfaced.
The CJI has asked the Secretary General to go through the letter written in Hindi for preparing a note of it for his perusal," a Supreme Court official told PTI.
According to doctors at the KGMU Trauma Centre in Lucknow, the rape victim and her lawyer were on ventilator and their condition was being monitored.
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A National Commission for Women (NCW) team visited the victim's mother at the hospital.
Her family members sat on a dharna outside the hospital, demanding parole to her uncle Mahesh Singh from jail for the last rites of his wife.
The dharna ended on the intervention of Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav. The court also granted short-term bail to Mahesh Singh to attend the cremation on Wednesday.
Congress workers led by Leader of the Legislature Party Ajay Kumar Lallu too sat on dharna and then courted arrest, demanding the expulsion of the BJP lawmaker from the party.
Uttar Pradesh BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh, however, said the MLA was suspended from the party long back after the rape accusation, and his status remains the same.
But Priyanka Gandhi, who is in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh for her party, tweeted, Why do we give people like Kuldeep Sengar the strength and protection of political power and abandon their victims to battle for their lives alone?"