india

Updated: Sep 01, 2019 01:13 IST

A team of Delhi Police arrived in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur on Saturday to escort the parents of a law student who had accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Swami Chinmayanand of sexual harassment, news agency PTI quoted the woman’s father as saying.

Former Union minister Chinmayanand was on Tuesday booked for allegedly kidnapping the woman who went missing after posting a video on Facebook on August 24, accusing “a big leader of the saint society” of threatening her and “destroying the lives of several girls”.

The woman, who was traced to Rajasthan and produced before the Supreme Court on Friday, told the judges in an in-camera interaction that she did not want to go back to her home town till she met her parents.

“… Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and statement of Ms A, we direct the commissioner of police, Delhi, to send a team to Shahjahanpur to ensure her parents comfortably travel to Delhi to meet Ms A,” Justice Banumathi said at the end of the interaction.

A team of two sub-inspectors, including a lady officer, and four other policemen will be accompanying the post-graduate student’s family to Delhi, PTI said.

“The Delhi Police team which arrived here gave us a copy of the Supreme Court order before taking us with them to Delhi to meet our daughter,” the father of the law student told PTI on phone.

On Friday, when the court was told that the woman had been found, it directed the Uttar Pradesh Police to produce her before it even as they were on their way to Sahajahanpur from Rajasthan. Later, the SC bench, which assembled at 7.35pm to hear the matter, said in an open-court hearing that the woman had left Uttar Pradesh with her three college mates in “order to protect herself”. The matter was heard in the apex court thrice during the day.

After Uttar Pradesh government counsel Garima Prashad informed the court of the woman’s whereabouts, advocate Shobha said the woman should be produced before the court. Justices Banumathi and Bopanna stayed back in the court after working hours to wait for the woman. The interaction finally took place at 6.35pm in justice Banumathi’s chambers. When the court assembled later at 7.30pm, the judges took note of the concerns expressed by the young woman.

The matter will be heard next on Monday.