Court stays UP rape victim's arrest in extortion case

A district court in Shahajahanpur, about 175 kilometres from here, on Tuesday stayed the arrest of the law student, who has accused former union minister and senior BJP leader Swami Chinmayananda of ''raping'' her, on charges of allegedly trying to extort money from the seer.

The court, after hearing the victim's petition seeking pre-arrest bail, posted the matter for further hearing on Thursday and directed the special investigation team (SIT), which was probing the matter, not to arrest her till then.

The victim moved the district court after the Allahabad high court rejected her petition seeking stay on her possible arrest.

According to the sources in Shahajahanpur, the SIT wanted to question the victim in its custody in connection with the alleged extortion charges.

The name of the victim was included in the FIR registered against three of her friends on the basis of a complaint by Chinmayananda accusing them of trying to black mail him by threatening to make his (seer) ''sex videos'' public. The three ''friends'' of the victim were already in police custody.

Chinmayananda was arrested by the SIT a few days back for ''sexually exploiting'' the victim, who was a student of law at a college of which the seer was the director.

Sources said that the SIT was in possession of a video purportedly containing conversation between the victim and her friends about the plan to extort money from the seer.

The victim, however, dismissed the charges and said that she was being ''framed'' to ''save'' Chinmayananda. ''It is a ploy to weaken the case...I had an inkling that something like this might happen,'' she had said.