New Delhi: On August 1, a bakery owner and his employee were arrested by the Ayodhya Police for allegedly raping his 12-year-old daily wage staffer for more than two months. The incident was reported from Bhadarsa town under Purakalandar police station of Ayodhya district.
Station house officer of Purakalandar police station Ratan Sharma and Bhadarsa police outpost in-charge Akhilesh Gupta have been suspended after the crime surfaced when the victim became pregnant.
The prime suspect of the sexual assault has been identified as Moid Khan and his accomplice as Raju Khan. The Ayodhya Police have taken them into custody.
Who is the prime accused Moid Khan?
A member of the Samajwadi Party, Moid Khan is the party’s city chief of Bhadarsa town in Ayodhya district. As per UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Moid Khan is also a very close aide of Faizabad MP ‘Awadhesh Prasad.
Moid Khan had been running a bakery in Ayodhya, which was brought down by the Ayodhya district administration on August 3. While razing his bakery, Ayodhya district magistrate Chandra Vijay Singh said that the shop was unauthorised as it had been constructed over a water body.
Political slugfest over Ayodhya gangrape case
The Samajwadi Party has come in defence of Moid Khan and claimed that he is a victim of a conspiracy.
Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party supremo, raised a demand that a DNA test should be carried out of the two accused so that proper justice is done. “In the case of misdeeds, the way for justice should be found by getting DNA tests done on those who are accused, and not by merely making allegations and doing politics,” Yadav wrote in a post on X.
Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, also said DNA tests have been used to find the culprits in such cases in the past. “There is nothing wrong in what Akhilesh Yadav is saying. But what is sad, and that’s been a case with UP, whenever such incidents happen, rather than looking at it as an issue of justice, everybody tries to politicise,” the Congress leader pointed out.
Accusing the Samajwadi Party of defending a “paedophile”, the BJP said that the SP was showing “boys will be boys mindset”. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also hit out at Akhilesh Yadav over his DNA demand.
UP minister and Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad had demanded immediate and decisive action against those involved in the Ayodhya gangrape case. He said that criminals should not be protected regardless of their political affiliation. “A criminal has no caste,” he added.