Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik’s (JVM-P) Poreyahat legislator, Pradeep Yadav, on Thursday, surrendered to the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Deoghar in connection with a molestation case filed by a woman leader of his party on April 21. Acting CJM, Kamal Nayan, forwarded Yadav to judicial custody.
Deoghar’s CJM had issued an arrest warrant against Yadav on June 30 after police found evidences against him. However, Yadav remained absconding from his residences since the warrant was issued, police said.
Rinki Jha, 38, had in a complaint lodged with Woman’s Police Station in Deoghar on April 21 accused Yadav of molesting her in a hotel room and snatching Rs.2 lakh cash from her. The incident, she said, had occurred at around 9.15pm on April 20.
During investigation, Deoghar police found that the location of mobile phones used by Yadav and the complainant was same on the fateful day, said Deoghar’s Superintendent of Police Narendra Kumar Singh. “Eyewitnesses have also given statements indicating that the complainant and Yadav were together at the hotel on the fateful day.
The check-in register and identity proofs submitted at the hotel’s reception also prove that the two were in the hotel on April 20,” Singh said during the course of investigation.
Besides, police recovered records of chats between the two parties over smart phone messaging App WhatsApp. The chat records, Singh said, were suspicious and indicated possible malafide intentions.
On June19, a District Court in Deoghar rejected Yadav’s petition for anticipatory bail. Yadav, who recorded his statement with the Cyber Police Station in Deoghar on June 13, had pleaded innocence. He claimed that the complaint was politically-motivated and accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders of influencing the complainant to tarnish Yadav’s image.
Jha, in her statement under Section 164 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), said that she had visited Deoghar to attend a rally on April 20. Yadav, she said, had asked her to meet him at Hotel Shivashakti. When she reached the hotel, Yadav allegedly called her to room no. 202 and tried to outrage her modesty.
After failing to overpower her, Yadav took away Rs 2 lakh cash which she was carrying in her purse, the complainant said in her statement.
Interestingly, Jha leveled the allegations a week before the first phase of 17th General Elections in Jharkhand.
Yadav contested the Godda parliamentary constituency as the Mahagathbandhan candidate in the elections. He lost to BJP’s Nishikant Dubey by a huge margin.