The Uttar Pradesh police on Sunday arrested three people and charged them with gang-rape for allegedly sexually assaulting a student inside the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) campus in November.
The arrested include two members of BJP’s IT cell in Varanasi.
The arrested trio were identified as Kunal Pandey of Sunderpur’s Brij Enclave Colony; Anand, alias Abhishek Chauhan, of Jivadhipur Bajardiha; and Saksham Patel of Bajardiha.
“The person who gang-raped an IIT BHU student is none other than BJP’s Kunal Pandey, convener of Mahanagar IT cell, and Saksham Patel, who is the PA of Dilip Patel (Kashi zone president of the BJP),” said the Congress’s state chief.
The three young men have confessed to the crime, including disrobing and filming the survivor at gunpoint, and could be charged under the National Security Act and the UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, Kashi DCP R S Gautam said on Sunday.
Following their arrest, screenshots of Kunal and Saksham’s Facebook pages inundated social media, revealing their roles within the BJP’s IT cell. According to Navratan Rathi, the Kashi media in-charge for BJP, Kunal served as the convenor of the cell’s city unit, while Saksham held the position of co-convenor.
The arrests came two months after protests broke out in the institute.
“Every woman across the country is seeing how the BJP is playing with women’s dignity and protecting those accused of atrocities,” former chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav posted on X.
The Congress’s state chief said that for the BJP, “Bachao-Beti Padhao’ was just a slogan.
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