Sex-ploitation charges: BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand sent to Shahjahanpur jail after court rejects bail plea

BJP leader and former Union Minister Swami Chinmayanand was sent to Shahjahanpur jail on Monday after being discharged from the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow. A law student had accused Chinmayanand of rape.

Earlier, an Uttar Pradesh court on Monday dismissed the BJP leader's bail pleas. District Court Judge Ram Babu Sharma had reserved its order in the matter after hearing arguments from both the sides.

A local court had on September 20 sent Chinmayanand to judicial custody for 14 days for launching a sexual assault on the law student. The law student was also arrested on September 25 and sent to 14-day judicial custody for allegedly demanding extortion money.

The Special investigation team (SIT) probing the rape case had said that the law student affirmed that she demanded Rs 5 crore as extortion money from Chinmayanand.

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. Chinmayanand's team had, in turn, filed an extortion case.

The student, who studied in a college run by Chinmayanand, has also testified before a local court that she was repeatedly raped by the BJP leader for over a year. She had also said that the accused recorded the incident on camera and used it to blackmail her.

(With ANI inputs)