After Congress was denied permission to hold a padayatra in support of jailed student who levelled rape allegations against BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand, its general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday hit out against the Uttar Pradesh government for "suppressing the voices of justice."
"The criminals in Uttar Pradesh are threatening the rape victim under the protection of the government. The BJP government wants to suppress the voices of justice for our Shahjahanpur daughter. The padayatra was stopped. Our leaders are being arrested. What is there to be afraid of?" she said in a tweet.
In a subsequent tweet, Priyanka said that the state government was "abusing" democracy and said the ruling dispensation could go to any extent to suppress the voices seeking justice for the rape victim and save a rape accused.
"Section 144 is imposed when any protest is held against them. You cannot suppress the voices of the people and you cannot hide injustice and tyranny. The more you try, the demand for justice will strengthen. Ensure justice to the rape victim and stop saving your minister," Priyanka tweeted.
Congress leader Jitin Prasada on Monday claimed that he was put under preventive custody after the district administration denied permission to hold the 180-km long padayatra from Shahjahanpur to the state capital Lucknow.
Prasada was seen questioning police over the denial of holding the foot march and asked whether or not holding a protest seeking justice for a person was wrong.
In his Twitter post, the Congress leader attached a letter of the District Magistrate Shahjahanpur addressed to the party's district committee president Kaushal Mishra. The Congress party also shared visuals on their official Twitter handle of their party leaders being taken away by the police.
A local court in Shahjahanpur had on September 20 sent Chinmayanand to 14 days of judicial custody for allegedly sexually assaulting the law student. He was charged with an offence not amounting to rape, stalking and criminal intimidation.
Earlier, during the SIT interrogation, the student had accepted that she instigated one of her friends to send messages to Chinmayanand demanding extortion money. After her confession, she was arrested and produced before the court, which sent her to judicial custody for 14 days.
The law student went missing on August 24 after a video of her alleging that a person from 'Sant Samaj' had threatened to kill her and her parents went viral on the social media.
The girl, who studied in a college run by Chinmayanand, had later testified before a local court that she was repeatedly raped by the BJP leader for over a year. She said that the accused recorded the incidents on camera and used them to blackmail her.
( With inputs from ANI )