No Coercive Police Action Against Padma Awardee Monk Kartik Maharaj Till Monday

(MENAFN- IANS) Kolkata, July 3 (IANS) The Murshidabad District Police in West Bengal will not adopt any coercive action till July 7 including arrest against Padma Shree awardee monk Kartik Maharaj, attached to the Murshidabad unit of Bharat Sevashram Sangha, who had been recently accused of raping a woman way back in 2013.

This assurance was given to Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Jay Sengupta, where Kartik Maharaj had filed a petition seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him last week in the matter.

On Thursday, the matter was scheduled to be heard at Justice Sengupta's bench and the hearing was supposed to be in-camera. However, the state government counsel opposed the idea of an in-camera hearing and claimed that the counsel of Kartik Maharaj should come and explain to the court why an in-camera hearing in the matter was necessary.

Thereafter, it was decided that the next hearing in the matter would be heard on July 7 and till that time the police would not adopt any coercive action including arrest against Kartik Maharaj in the matter.

Although the alleged rape and forceful abortion reportedly took place between January and June of 2013, the complaint in the matter was launched last week only, the timing of which coincided with the on-going major stir in the state over the rape of a law student within her college premises at Kasba in south Kolkata in the evening of June 25.

Nabagram Police Station, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Murshidabad District Police sent a notice to Kartik Maharaj to be present at the said police station on July 1 morning for questioning.

However, he approached Justice Sengupta's bench seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him in the matter instead of appearing at the police station.

In his petition, it has claimed that the cops registered the FIR in the matter while conducting a preliminary investigation, and that too based on a complaint made by a woman on an alleged event that took place 13 years ago.

Kartik Maharaj, who had since the beginning denied the allegations, claimed that the police actions were merely intended to harass a monk like him.

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