A big leader of the saint society, who has destroyed the lives of several girls, has been threatening my life.” This is how a 23-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh described her alleged sexual harasser, BJP leader Chinmayanand, last Friday. Less than 24 hours after posting a video pleading Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for help because “everyone else is on (Chinmayanand’s) side”, the woman went missing.
In a span of seven days, the woman went from being someone who dared to speak truth to power, to being a missing person as a potential consequence of that act, to finally being found and asked to be produced before the Supreme Court. For these reasons, and more, the Shahjahanpur law student is our newsmaker of the week.
In the viral video that she shot of herself, the woman asserted that “only I know what I have been going through”. “Modi ji, please help me, he is a sanyasi and is threatening that the police, DM (district magistrate) and everyone else is on his side and no one can harm him,” she said, without naming Chinmayanand.
Her father accused the BJP leader, a former minister in the Vajpayee government, of sexually harassing her, and filed a police complaint. But the UP police registered the FIR only on Tuesday – three days after she went missing. Although Chinmayanand was charged with kidnapping and criminal intimidation, he is yet to be questioned by the UP police.
Nearly a week after she went missing, the woman was found in Rajasthan Friday with a friend in a “hale and hearty” condition, according to the Uttar Pradesh’s director general of police, O.P. Singh. “It seems she went out of her own will to various places,” the DGP said.
Despite she being AWOL for nearly a week, not only did her accusations capture Indian media’s imagination, but also led to some important revelations about Chinmayanand.
Also read: Found by UP Police, woman who accused ex-BJP MP of sexual harassment is ‘scared for life’
‘Another Unnao’
Chinmayanand’s lawyer — expectedly — rejected the woman’s allegations and also claimed that the accusations were made to extort money from the BJP leader. The lawyer claimed the three-time MP had been asked to pay Rs 5 crore, and that the woman’s video and the blackmail attempt were “probably linked”.
Even Chinmayanand, who is the director of SS Law College in Shahjahanpur where the woman is a student, said he was “being falsely framed just like Kuldeep Singh Sengar” – the accused in the Unnao rape case. So the BJP leader, in his defence, isn’t merely denying the accusations levelled against him; he is also unabashedly declaring his rape-accused party colleague an innocent. Chinmayanand was also concerned about “the image of the Yogi Adityanath government”, which the woman’s allegation was “attempt(ing) to malign”.
The Supreme Court too had decided to take up the case after lawyers raised concerns about how it could turn into “another Unnao case”. Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the MLA from Bangarmau in the Unnao parliamentary constituency, is behind bars on charges of raping a minor girl in 2017 and for the murder of the girl’s father. Sengar was expelled by the BJP only this month, following the death of the victim’s two aunts in a road accident that the MLA has been charged by the CBI of orchestrating.
Also read: Unnao rape survivor’s case shows rural India needs a MeToo
Chinmayanand — ‘Swami’ or not?
Much of the media coverage on Chinmayanand has looked at his assets – the sprawling ashram in Shahjahanpur, the five colleges in town, and the net worth of his empire believed to be in several crores. It has also been reported that Chinmayanand has posters of himself with top BJP leaders, including CM Adityanath, put up outside his ashram.
Some are disappointed over the media continuing to use the prefix “Swami” for Chinmayanand – who was in 2011 booked on charges of raping a woman who stayed at his ashram. But Chinmayanand is not the first “Swami” to face accusations of sexual harassment or rape.
‘If my phone goes off for a longer duration, then understand that I am in trouble. My phone will go off only when it is not in my hands,” these were the 23-year-old woman’s last words to her mother reportedly before she went missing.
Now that she has been found, the Supreme Court wants to have an in-camera conversation with her in its chambers. She is scheduled to appear for a hearing in a Shahjahanpur court Monday.
On what basis is the CJI blemishless, the padri who raped the nun blemishless, but the swami guilty? Did anyone object to the padri being called ‘Father? So now why are they objecting to calling this man swami? Do an honest investigation, then charge him if required. A girl in hiding even when she knows the swami would be automatically placed under police custody if she was not found, a boyfriend who makes blackmail calls..it all looks suspicious. The media must stop prejudicing the case.
Of course there were people living in India before Aryan invasion. They were called dravidians