Lucknow: Coming out heavily against the Bharatiya Janata Party over the bail granted to two accused in the IIT-BHU rape case, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav termed the development "condemnable and worrisome" and asked with whose pressure the accused were released.
Taking a veiled jibe on the BJP as the incident happened in Varanasi, the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister asked if BJP workers have "special freedom" to commit rapes in India's "prime parliamentary constituency."
Taking to social media platform X, Akhilesh Yadav said, "Two of the three accused in the BHU gang rape case, who worked as BJP IT cell officials, getting bail is both condemnable and worrisome. The question is who was putting pressure to defend the rapists in the court."
The SP chief alleged that the released accused were welcomed and garlanded by BJP and asked if the party would like to give an explanation on this to the women of this country.
"This is shameful and demoralizing for the daughters of this country. Not only have these rapists come out but there are also reports that as per BJP tradition, they were welcomed with garlands," he added.
"Would the BJP like to say something about this to our sisters and daughters? I hope that all the women anchors doing true journalism will definitely do a show about this. In this extremely sensitive matter, we can expect from those so-called 'honest' journalists associated with the BJP, even if it is just at the level of formality, being women, that they will not speak but at least they will rebuke the BJP spokespersons who are giving illogical arguments to justify this bail. It is meaningless to expect more than this from them," Yadav stated.
"BJP should clarify whether BJP workers have been given special exemption and freedom to commit rape in the country's 'prime parliamentary' constituency? Very shameful!" he added.
The incident happened last year. A woman student was allegedly raped by three people inside the Indian Institute of Technology-Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU) campus.
The Allahabad High Court granted bail to two accused in the case, Kunal Pandey and Abhishek Chauhan. The third accused Saksham Patel is still in jail.
—ANI