District-level minority leader in UP fired by BJP on rape-murder accusation

Masoom Raza Rahi, the president of the BJP’s minority cell for the Maharajganj district, has been expelled from the party for six years and is the subject of a recent rape and murder investigation.

Since September 7, Rahi has been missing. On September 5, a complaint was made against him for allegedly killing her father and raping a 17-year-old Dalit girl.

‘Masoom Raza Rahi has been expelled from the party for six years and his primary membership has also been terminated on the instructions of the state and regional leadership,’ BJP’s district unit convenor Sanjay Pandey said.

The action was launched when Rahi, the district president of the Bharatiya Janata Party Minority Morcha, was charged with rape and murder in Maharajganj Kotwali. According to Pandey, this has damaged the party’s reputation.

The child claimed in her police report that the BJP politician had sexually assaulted her on August 28 and that when her father objected, the accuser beat him, leaving him with serious injuries.

The girl’s father died while receiving treatment. The complainant added that she and her father, together with her father’s three sisters and younger brother, had been tenants in Rahi’s home since her mother’s death.

On the basis of her complaint, a FIR was filed against the BJP under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and sections 376 (rape), 302 (murder), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault, or wrongful restrain.

On charges of incompetence and improper treatment of the rape and murder case, five police officers, including a sub-inspector, were suspended from duty on Sunday, while 14 other officers were fired.

Following the FIR, the accused was imprisoned, but was released after the woman recanted the rape accusations in her remarks to a magistrate on September 6.

Although the case against him, which also involves a murder charge, is still being looked into, Rahi has been missing since September 7, according to the police.