Shahjahanpur, Sep 20 (UNI) After the arrest of BJP leader and former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand from his ashram here on Friday morning on charges of sexual exploitation of a law student, police nabbed three more people for allegedly extorting five crore rupees from the self-styled godman.
Surprisingly, two of the three arrested are cousins of the law student, who had accused Chinmayanand of rape and sexual harassment.
The arrested were sent for medical examination and then to jail after being produced before the CJM court.
SIT chief and Inspector General of Police(IG) Naveen Arora, while talking to mediapersons here, said Chinmayanand has admitted to almost every allegation leveled against him.
"Circumstantial evidences are also being examined and if required he could be asked for further interrogation,' he said.
The IG also disclosed that during the final interrogation of Swami Chinmayanand, the accused confessed to his crime and said he was ashamed of his acts.
"Chinmayanand had accepted all except rape charges leveled against him," he said, adding that the girl and boy Sanjay, who demanded a ransom of Rs 5 crore, had interacted on mobile phone 4,200 time during the past one year while the girl and Chinmayanand had spoken for 200 times.
The IG also said the three, arrested for demanding a ransom from the Swami, too have confessed to their crime.
Meanwhile, UP Director General of Police(DGP) O P Singh, in his statement, said the police, acting on the direction of Supreme Court, had constituted the SIT team.
"After a thorough probe, we arrested Chinmayanand from his ashram and sent him to jail. There has been no delay in the case. We have also arrested three people over extortion threats to Swami Chinmayanand," he added.
Recently, video clips of Swami Chinmayanand taking a massage from the law student had gone viral on the social media. Soon after, another video clip showing the girl along when her friend Sanjay and few more people surfaced.
The video clip allegedly showed the law student, her friend being yelled at by another person for demanding money from Chinmayanand. The SIT had examined both the videos and all aspects before arresting Chinmayanand and three others.
Earlier, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over delay in the arrest of the rape accused.
Hours after the arrest, Vadra tweeted, ''BJP has become so thick skinned that until the victim threatens self immolation, it doesn’t take any action. It is the power of people’s ire and journalism that the SIT had to arrest BJP leader Chinmayanand.”
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