India News | Ex-IPS Officer, Arrested in Suicide Abetment Case, Granted Bail

Lucknow, Mar 14 (PTI) Former IPS officer Amitabh Thakur, arrested last August for allegedly abetting suicide by a rape victim and his friend, was granted bail by the Allahabad High Court on Monday.

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The rape victim and her friend had set themselves ablaze before the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi in protest against the alleged police inaction against the rapist and had died subsequently on August 24 in a hospital in the national capital during treatment.

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The bail was granted by Justice Rajeev Singh of the Lucknow bench of the high court.

The former IPS was arrested on August 27.

The court granted bail to Thakur saying the prosecution has expressed no apprehension of the tampering of evidence by the accused after the filing of the charge sheet in the case by the police.

“The charge sheet has already been filed in the case and there is no averment in the counter affidavit of the state government for tampering any evidence,” the judge said.

A 24-year-old woman, belonging to UP's Ballia district and studying in Varanasi, had accused BSP Lok Sabha MP Atul Rai of raping her at his Varanasi home in 2018.

She had also accused Thakur of helping the MP in harassing and threatening her to withdraw her case or weaken it.

Her friend, who was 27, too had died days before.

Before setting themselves afire, the two had posted a video on Facebook, saying that she had lodged a rape case against the MP but the police were shielding him.

They had claimed that the threats and harassment were driving them to commit suicide.

The Uttar Pradesh government had set up a two-member probe panel led by DGP (Police Recruitment and Promotion Board) Raj Kumar Vishwakarma and comprising Additional DG (Women Power Line) Neera Rawat to look into the woman's allegations.

In its probe report, the panel held Thakur and Rai prime facie responsible for abetment of suicide and other charges and recommended lodging cases against them.

The Lucknow police subsequently lodged an FIR against Thakur and Rai at the city's Hazratganj police station on a complaint by sub-inspector Daya Shankar Dwivedi.

Thakur was arrested subsequently from outside his residence in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)