Agar woh paataal mein bhi chhupa hoga to police uss ko nikaal kar jail mein dalegi

LUCKNOW: A fugitive from justice for more than two weeks, former UP minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati was arrested on Wednesday for the alleged gangrape of a woman and sexual assault of her minor daughter. A court sent him to 14-day judicial custody.Prajapati was arrested in the UP capital while on way to court to surrender, police said. The arrest came hours after police detained his sons, Anil and Anurag Prajapati, for questioning on Tuesday, and began the process of attaching his property.Prajapati claimed political conspiracy. “I am being framed. I will get justice and I have faith in the judiciary,” he said, adding, “I want a narco (lie detector) test in this case so that truth comes out.”Sources said Prajapati told cops that the gang-rape survivor wanted to marry her elder daughter to Ashish, a co-accused in the rape case.When Ashish refused, she lodged a complaint against them, the minister alleged.SSP Lucknow, Manzil Saini, said they may seek police remand of Prajapati for further questioning. “We’ve recorded statements of survivors and other accused and will submit a chargesheet in the case,” she told TOI.But, police controversially allowed the former minister to visit hospital in his SUV instead of a police van while being in custody. Senior officers were tight-lipped, but a former top cop said police were still handling Prajapati as if he was a VIP.Former DGP Vikram Singh said, “Medical examination is mandatory before an accused is arrested but since he was in custody, there was no reason to allow him use of own vehicle.”An FIR was lodged against Prajapati and his aides on the directions of the Supreme Court following a complaint by a woman from Bundelkhand, who alleged that he had gangraped her at his official residence in Lucknow in 2014. She also accused Prajapati and his two aides of sexually assaulting her minor daughter.The FIR was lodged on February 17 but police did not act against him or others.Prajapati was last seen in public on February 27 when he voted in Amethi , from where he was SP’s candidate. He lost to BJP ’s Garima Sinh.BJP described Prajapati’s arrest as a sign of change in the state, accusing the outgoing SP government of shielding him. The rape case became an issue in the polls and was used by BJP to drive home UP’s lawlessness.Prime Minister Narendra Modi had specified police’s failure to arrest Gayatri as an example of the extent to which alleged criminals had political patronage in UP. BJP national president Amit Shah had said a BJP government will ensure Gayatri is arrested at once.(police under a BJP government will find him, no matter where),” Shah had said at an election rally.