Patna: A Bhartiya Jatata Party (BJP) lawmaker from Bihar was today sent to jail after he was arrested for allegedly molesting a teenaged girl on a moving train. Acting quickly, the party has now suspended the lawmaker.
The lawmaker, Tunnaji Pandey, was arrested by railway police early on Sunday morning from an express train following a written complaint from the victim’s family. Her father has a business in Thailand.
As per the complaint, the 12-year-old victim was travelling in an air-conditioned coach of the train with her parents when the lawmaker allegedly molested her at night and tried to dag her towards the toilet.
She hurriedly raised an alarm after which her parents woke up and registered a case with the railway police. He was arrested when the train stopped at Hajipur railway station in Bihar. The train en route to Kolkata was on the way to Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
“We have been informed the accused molested the girl and also tried to drag her near the toilet during night hours,” a railway police office Sanjay Singh told media.
Soon after his arrest, the accused was produced in a local court which remanded him to judicial custody for 14 days. The arrested lawmaker was a BJP member of Bihar Legislative Council, Upper House of the state legislature.
The BJP has suspended the lawmaker from the party and also served him a show-cause notice.
This is the third arrest of lawmakers in Bihar on the charges of sexual harassment in the past few months. Earlier, Janata Dal United lawmaker Sarfaraz Alam and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) lawmaker Raj Ballabh Yadav were arrested by the police on similar charges.
