LUCKNOW: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested Bangarmau BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar , who was booked by the UP police on Thursday following nationwide furore over rape allegations levelled against him by a 17-year-old minor in Unnao. He was picked up for questioning from Lucknow before the break of dawn on Friday and the CBI team took him into custody late in the evening.Although the Allahabad high court ordered earlier in the day that the MLA should be arrested ‘forthwith’, the CBI officials kept claiming till late evening that he had been detained. However, at around 9.45 pm, CBI spokesperson RK Gaur confirmed to TOI that Sengar had been arrested at 9.30pm. “We have arrested Kuldeep Sengar on charges of prima facie rape. There are certain inconsistencies in his statements over the June 4 incident for which we require his custody. He will be produced before a local CBI court in Lucknow on Saturday,” said a CBI source in Lucknow.The CBI’s early morning swoop took place a day after Allahabad high court came down heavily on the Yogi Adityanath government over the case, asking it whether it proposed to arrest the accused MLA as promptly as it did in other cases. A CBI team along with UP cops picked him up from an Indiranagar residence of his relative in Lucknow at around 4:30am. Sengar was taken to the CBI headquarters in Hazratganj where he was interrogated till late in the evening.His family said he had planned to leave for Varanasi for a visit to Kal Bhiarav temple but was asked by the CBI to join the probe. The Central agency team converted three FIRs earlier filed by the Unnao police to move ahead in the case.According to the CBI press release, the first FIR was about the alleged rape of the girl in which Sengar and a woman Shashi Singh had been named as accused. The second one was about rioting, in which four locals have been booked, and also the alleged killing of the victim's father in judicial custody. Since the murder charge was added later by the police, it does not reflect in the CBI FIR.The third case deals with allegations against the survivor's father who was arrested under Arms Act and put in jail by the local police where he died in custody. He also suffered 18 serious wounds as per the post mortem report.The victim has alleged that she was raped by the MLA at his residence on June 4, 2017 where she had gone with a relative seeking a job. She tried to immolate self in front of the CM house in Lucknow in April 8 after repeated call for justice were not heeded.There was a nation-wide uproar over the case and the state government recommended the case to the CBI, which detained him on Friay morning, hours after formally taking over. Sengar was kept at the CBI office in Lucknow till late in the night, keeping media persons and onlookers on the tenterhooks throughout the day.CBI spokesperson RK Gaur told TOI that the CBI team first detained Sengar and then took him to its office at Nawal Kishore Road for interrogation while another team set out for Unnao. In Unnao, they further bifurcated into two units. One of the teams questioned the family members of the survivor who were stationed at a hotel in Unnao city while another unit visited the Makhi police station and quizzed the policemen who were suspended. Six of them have been detained, too.Later, the same team went to the alleged spot of crime and interacted with villagers. “The team also spoke to doctors who had done medical examination of the survivor’s deceased father,” said Gaur. The CBI team also met SP Unnao and took her statements on the whole episode. They came back to Lucknow around 7.30 pm. Despite media reports about Sengar’s arrest, especially after the high court categorically asked for it, the CBI officials kept on stating till late in the evening that he was still under detention and not arrested.Meanwhile, sources privy to the probe in the CBI told TOI that the statements of the accused and the survivor and others would be examined and later both will be brought face-to face in order to get a clarity in the case. “The survivor and his family have reportedly been called to Lucknow on Saturday,” said a CBI source.