Rape-accused and booked under POSCO, former minister Prajapati gets bail in a month

Former UP minister Gayatri Prajapati was accused of raping a woman and her minor daughter in 2014. The minister promptly went on the run and had been missing for nearly a month. He has spent a little more than a month in jail, and will now be free on bail. 

Former UP minister Gayatri Prajapati and two of his alleged accomplices were today granted bail by a POCSO court here in connection with a rape case. Special judge of a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court Om Prakash Mishra granted bail to Prajapati, Vikas Verma and Amrendra Singh alias Mintu.

The court asked Prajapati to furnish two sureties of Rs 1 lakh each and a personal bond of the same amount. An FIR was registered against Prajapati and six others on February 17 on a directive of the Supreme Court.

After being on the run for nearly a month, Prajapati (49) was arrested from Aashiyana area here on March 15 and sent to jail for allegedly raping a woman and attempting to rape her minor daughter in 2014.

The six others had been arrested earlier. Prajapati had approached the Supreme Court to get a stay on his arrest but the top court asked him to approach the court concerned.

At the time of his arrest, Prajapati had claimed that he was innocent and alleged the charges were a conspiracy to malign him. The former minister had said that he was prepared for a Narco test to bring out the truth and also demanded that similar test on the minor victim.

In the just-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prajapati lost his Amethi seat to the BJP. The allegations against Prajapati were raked by the BJP during the elections to attack the then Akhilesh Yadav-led government.