Woman, lawyers arrested for lodging false r*pe complaint

Agra, July 7: An alleged 'r*pe victim' and three lawyers have been arrested for lodging a false complaint against a youth here. The accused also attempted to blackmail the youth into paying them Rs 5 lakhs to settle the matter.

Station house officer of Hari Parvat police station, Arvind Kumar, said on Thursday that the woman and three lawyers have been booked under IPC Sections 195 (Giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of offence punishable with imprisonment for life or imprisonment), 384 (extortion), 385 (Putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) and 420 (cheating).

All of them have been sent to judicial custody after they were arrested on Wednesday. According to the police official, the woman, 28, had filed a police complaint on June 24 claiming that her acquaintance, Rahul Sikarvar, 20, had invited her for celebrating his birthday at a hotel, where he mixed some intoxicant in her cold drink and then allegedly r*ped her. She also claimed that Rahul had recorded a video and had threatened to make it public in case she told anyone about the incident.

Police had registered an FIR under various IPC sections including 376 (Rape) at Hari Parvat police station against the youth. During investigation, the complaint was found to be fake and it turned out that the woman and her three lawyers - Jitendra Rajput, Nishant Kumar and Shekhar Pratap Singh - had conspired against Rahul to extort Rs 5 lakhs from him.

Two other lawyers including Rahul's lawyer Avinash Vaishya, who helped the victim's lawyer in the case, are still at large, said police. The amount of Rs 3.75 lakh was recovered from their possession.