india

Updated: Aug 05, 2019 15:01 IST

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Unnao rape survivor to be airlifted to Delhi for better treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from Lucknow, where a hospital said she was “serious and stable”.

The 19-year-old woman, who has accused BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar of raping when she was a teenager, was critically injured when the car she was travelling in was hit by an over-speeding truck in Rae Bareli on July 28. Two of the survivor’s aunts were killed in the accident. Sengar was booked for murder by the CBI in the accident case.

The top court had on Friday deferred shifting of the woman to a hospital in Delhi while ordering that her uncle be shifted from a Rae Bareli jail to Tihar in the national capital.

“So far as the movement of survivor and lawyer for medical treatment is concerned there appears to be hesitation on the part of the family members, so we shall defer giving orders to Monday,” the top court had said.

A medical bulletin issued by the King Geroge’s Medical University (KGMU) in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow on Monday said the condition of the rape survivor was improving.

“She is following commands and opened her eyes and understanding things. The process of removing the ventilator has started, but she has to be given medicines to maintain her blood pressure,” the bulletin said.

The rape survivor’s lawyer is breathing without a ventilator, but his condition is not improving and he is still in “deep coma”, KGMU said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation, which has taken over the investigation into the collision between the car and the truck with blackened registration plate, booked 10 people for murder, including Kuldeep Singh Sengar.

Kuldeep Singh Sengar was expelled by the Bharatiya Janata Party following a massive uproar after the accident. He is already in jail on charges of raping the Unnao woman when she was a minor in 2017.

The four-time lawmaker, Sengar is accused of raping the girl when she went to meet him along with a neighbour to seek his help in getting a job in June 2017.

The case has seen many twists and turns as the woman went missing for almost 10 days after levelling the allegation. She even accused the police of not letting her name the MLA in her complaint. Her father was beaten up and died in custody and a key witness also died in 2018.

The case was finally handed over to the CBI in 2018 and it booked Sengar, his brother and five others in the case.

In the past few weeks, before the rape survivor’s road accident, she and her family had written several letters to the police, CBI, government officials and the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi alleging threat to life from the MLA. They accused the MLA and his henchmen of intimidating them and asking them to withdraw the case.

(With agency inputs)