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The Delhi High Court has reserved its order on the bail plea of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape victim's father's custodial death case. He is serving a ten-year prison term and has been in custody since April 13, 2018.
Justice Ravinder Dudeja reserved the order after hearing the submissions by advocate Mehmood Pracha on behalf of the Unnao rape victim. The court has granted liberty if he wishes to file his written submissions. Advocate Pracha argued that Kuldeep Singh Sengar doesn't deserve bail as there is a threat to the victim and to her family. "She is being harassed and defamed on social media," the advocate argued. He also submitted that some people entered the house of the victim after the withdrawal of the CRPF Security. An FIR has also been lodged in this regard. Senior counsel Manish Vasisth, along with advocate Kanhaiya Singhal, appeared for Kuldeep Singh Sengar. They opposed the submissions made by counsel for the victim. It was submitted that appellant Sengar has been in custody for the last 9 years in this case. Only 11 months are left. Earlier, it was argued by the counsel for Sengar that he was not present at the site on April 3, 2018. It was also submitted that the trial court relied on Section 61 of the CrPC of the Appellant's secretary, Santosh Mishra. He talked to the appellant on the phone on the day of the incident when he was not there. However, he was not examined by the court. It was also argued that there was a contradiction in the statements of the two witnesses. There is a lack of credibility and reliability. Senger, along with other accused, was convicted by the Tis Hazari Court in 2018. He is also serving a life sentence in a minor's rape case. These cases stem from FIRs of 2018, registered at Police Station Makhi, Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, which were decided by the District and Sessions Judge (West) at Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi. Senger's counsel had argued that the appellant had been languishing in jail since April 13, 2018, except for a brief period when he was granted the benefit of an interim suspension of sentence by this Court, on account of the marriage of his daughter, and the appellant had admittedly not misused the liberty granted to him. The background of the present case is that on June 4, 2017, the minor daughter of the victim in this case was enticed on the pretext of getting a job and was taken to the house of appellant Kuldeep Singh Senger, where the appellant had raped her. The high court had noted that on April 3, 2018, the family of the minor rape victim had travelled to Unnao for a court hearing when her father, the victim in this case, was brutally assaulted by the accused persons in broad daylight. The very next day, the police arrested the victim, Surendra, on allegations of being in illegal possession of arms, and he had ultimately succumbed to multiple injuries suffered by him in police custody on April 9, 2018. (ANI)
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