An 18-year-old in Uttar Pradesh was raped after she left a government function where free laptops were being distributed to students, a scheme championed by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. A male teacher deputed by her college to escort students was the first to be dropped by a private jeep they hired to take them home late at night.The teen says that she was in a group of 11 girls who waited for more than five hours to receive their computers at Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh because the guest of honour, a minister named Awadesh Prasad, was late. It was 9.30 pm, she said, when they got their laptops. They then hired a private driver and jeep to take them home in the dead of the night.The minister has denied that he ran several hours late. He said that "what transpired was very unfortunate."Bizarrely, the teacher escorting the girls chose to get dropped first. The teen was the last passenger in the jeep when the driver allegedly raped her and abandoned her on the road near her village in Amethi. He has been arrested.

Amethi is the high-profile constituency of the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.In 2012, Mr Gandhi led the campaign for his party in the election in Uttar Pradesh, but it was the Samajwadi Party and its young leader, Akhilesh Yadav, who won the state. Mr Yadav and his supporters rode bicycles across the state, promising youth-friendly schemes like free computers and better.