Padma awardee monk summoned by Bengal police in rape case

“Swami Pradiptananda shouldn’t be right here. I’ll undergo the papers and inform him,” mentioned Swami Anirbanananda, one other monk from the Bharat Sevashram Sangha’s Beldanga ashram after receiving the discover.

Swami Pradiptananda is answerable for the Beldanga ashram. He shared dais with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Bengal leaders corresponding to Suvendu Adhikari a number of occasions in latest months. In May 2024, chief minister Mamata Banerjee publicly accused him of serving to BJP within the then ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The monk despatched a authorized discover to Banerjee demanding an unconditional apology however she caught to her allegations.

The Lalbagh police station registered the rape case on June 26 and extra superintendent of police Raspreet Singh mentioned an investigation was underway. The monk, nevertheless, was not questioned until Sunday.

Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and his social gathering colleagues have alleged that the Trinamool Congress was making an attempt to border the monk with trumped up expenses.

“The veracity of the costs ought to be investigated first. Kartik Maharaj is being framed by TMC,” Majumdar mentioned.

The complainant has accused Swami Pradiptananda of raping her repeatedly between 2012 and 2019 by promising her a job at a faculty run by the Sangha. In the grievance letter, a duplicate of which was seen by HT, she alleged that two girls from the ashram forcibly took her to a non-public nursing house in 2013 to bear an abortion.

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The lady additionally claimed to have talked to Swami Pradiptananda over the telephone on June 12 and alleged that two males despatched by him threatened her the next day and requested her by no means to contact the monk once more.

Police served the summon discover amid rising protests in Bengal over the alleged June 25 gangrape of a 24-year-old scholar contained in the South Calcutta Law College by one former and two present college students who’ve been arrested.

The accused had been discovered to be lively staff of the scholars’ wing of the ruling social gathering.

Dissociating itself with the three accused, TMC focused BJP saying the fact-finding workforce it despatched to the faculty on Monday ought to have talked to Swami Pradiptananda as properly.

“The BJP sends fact-finding groups all over the place however it’s silent on Kartik Maharaj. Why don’t they ship one to Murshidabad and get the details from the rape sufferer,” minister Shashi Panja advised the media.

The BJP has been alleging since final week that executives of I-Pac, the corporate employed by TMC to formulate election methods, had made the Murshidabad lady file false expenses towards the monk.

On Monday, TMC circulated a video purportedly exhibiting the girl. Her face was digitally blurred.

“I don’t know what I-Pac is. I contacted a journalist to debate my ordeal. He suggested me to hunt authorized assist. No political social gathering is concerned on this,” the girl could possibly be heard saying within the video.