By IANS,
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court order handing over investigation in the Banda rape case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), an official said.
Ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislator Purshottam Naresh Dwivedi is the key accused in the case, in which a minor girl was allegedly raped and kept under illegal confinement in Banda district in December last year.
“The state government had already expressed its no-objection against the move to hand over the case to CBI and an affidavit to that effect was submitted before the apex court,” an official spokesman told reporters here.
While claiming action had already been initiated by the state government against the legislator as well as his four cohorts who were a party to the crime, the spokesman asserted: “The chief minister has always been of the firm view never to spare any law offender, particularly if the crime was committed against women.”
“No matter how high and mighty the offender might be, the chief minister was very clear about not allowing the offender to go scot free,” he added.
The spokesman further claimed that the government held a similar view in the Lakhimpur-Kheri case, where a teenaged girl was raped and murdered inside a police station in June this year.
The Supreme Court Monday handed over to CBI the probe into the Banda rape case.