‘People threatened me’: Unnao survivor’s letter to CJI days before accident

New Delhi: The Unnao rape survivor, who met with an accident on Sunday, had written a letter to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi days earlier alleging some people had come to her house and threatened her.

“…Take action against those who are making threats… people came to my house and threatened to take back cases, otherwise whole family will be put in jail in fake cases,” the survivor wrote on July 12, according to ANI.

The survivor had earlier accused BJP’s Uttar Pradesh MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar of raping her and the case is in courts with the MLA lodged in a jail.

On July 13, the survivor’s mother had complained about the threats to Uttar Pradesh police. In a registered letter sent to Unnao police, the mother mentioned two instances in which unidentified people threatened them. She had even written that she feared for her family.

She had also accused the BJP MLA of using his political influence to harass her and her family even while he was in jail.

On July 28, days after the two letters were written, the car in which the woman, her family and a lawyer were travelling was hit by a speeding truck in Rae Bareli on Sunday, killing two members while leaving her and the advocate critically injured.

Sengar, is an influential leader in the Bangarmau constituency, and the survivor’s family battled for a year before he was named in a police case for the rape. On April 8, 2018, the survivor attempted to self-immolate outside the residence of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to draw attention to the case.

Exactly one day after that, her father was allegedly assaulted by Sengar’s brother and his accomplices in police custody, leading to fatal injuries. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe indicted the MLA and several people connected to him of attempts to frame the survivor’s family in order to pressure her to drop the case.

Mohammed Yunus, one of the witnesses in the case also died a few months later. Sengar has been in prison since outrage over the case grew and federal agencies stepped into the matter.