The Murshidabad police had despatched a summon discover to the monk, popularly generally known as Kartik Maharaj, on Monday, asking him to look by 10 am on Tuesday for questioning
Swami Pradiptananda. (File Photo)
Lawyers conscious of the event stated the monk’s counsels filed the petition earlier than the one bench of justice Jay Sengupta. The bench is prone to maintain a listening to on Wednesday.
Murshidabad’s Lalbagh police station, which registered the case on June 26, despatched a summon discover to the monk, popularly generally known as Kartik Maharaj, on Monday, asking him to look by 10 am on Tuesday for questioning. The monk, who was in Kolkata, skipped the summon.
“Kartik Maharaj moved the excessive courtroom on Tuesday afternoon,” considered one of his aides advised HT, requesting anonymity. The monk didn’t make any remark and prevented the media.
The complainant alleged that Swami Pradiptananda had raped her repeatedly between 2012 and 2019 by promising her a job. In the grievance letter, a replica of which was seen by HT, she stated she was compelled to bear an abortion in 2013. She additionally claimed to have talked to Swami Pradiptananda over the cellphone on June 12 and alleged that two males despatched by him threatened her the next day.
The monk has shared dais with Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bengal leaders reminiscent of Suvendu Adhikari a number of instances in current months. In May 2024, chief minister Mamata Banerjee publicly accused him of serving to the BJP within the then ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The monk despatched a authorized discover to Banerjee, demanding an unconditional apology, however she caught to her allegations.
The ruling Trinamool Congress unleashed a recent assault on the monk after he moved the excessive courtroom.
The social gathering circulated a video of a 2014 occasion by which the monk purportedly stated Hindu ladies are raped as a result of they cross the Lakshaman Rekha, one thing Muslim ladies by no means do. HT couldn’t independently confirm the authenticity of the video.
TMC additionally ciruclated movies of native ladies of Nabagram, protesting the alleged rape and demanding punishment for the monk at an agitation on Tuesday.
Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and his social gathering colleagues alleged that the TMC was attempting to border the monk with trumped up costs.
“The veracity of the allegation needs to be investigated first. Why wasn’t any grievance lodged in all these years?” Majumdar stated on Monday.
Police served the summon discover on Monday amid rising protests in Bengal over the alleged June 25 gangrape of a 24-year-old scholar contained in the South Calcutta Law College by one former and two present college students, who’ve been arrested after the incident. The accused had been discovered to be lively staff of the scholars’ wing of the ruling social gathering.
The BJP has made this a political problem within the run-up to the 2026 meeting polls.
Dissociating itself from the accused within the gangrape case, TMC has focused Swami Pradiptananda to counter the BJP.
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