A Samajwadi Party (SP) leader who was gearing up to contest in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections was slapped with murder charges after a woman who had accused him and eight others of gang-raping her three years ago was found dead. The SP leader, named Arun Verma, is the sitting MLA from the Sadar Assembly constituency.
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The new charges were slapped on Arun Verma — who was gearing up to contest in Phase 5 of the UP elections — after the woman's father lodged a fresh complaint with the police against him. The complaint comes in light of the woman's body being found behind the Panchayat Bhavan of her village in the early hours of Saturday.
Local sources say while it looked like a case of murder at first sight — the woman had marks on her neck that pointed to strangulation — the true cause of death would become clear only after the post-mortem examination.
It may be noted that the woman had, after accusing the MLA and eight of his associates of gang-raping her in October 2013, had got married. However, she had returned home and was staying with her parents in the days before she went missing and her body was then found.
Political mileage
The incident has already assumed political overtones, with SP sources claiming that Verma was being framed by political rivals in the case, because a conviction here would ensure that he would not be able to contest any election in future.
It may be worth noting that the SP had initially insisted that it would field only those candidates in the Assembly elections who had a clean image. Accordingly, sitting Nagina constituency MLA Manoj Paras had been initially denied a poll ticket. However, as dissent began to surface in the party ranks, he was given a ticket to contest. This could also be the reason why a rape-accused like Arun Verma had been given an election ticket.
