Raj Ballabh Yadav was suspended by RJD after an arrest warrant was issued for him in February.
Highlights
- Raj Ballabh Yadav, suspended by RJD, was released on Saturday
- Bihar government has asked Supreme Court to cancel his bail
- The Supreme Court will hear the plea against his bail on Friday
Less than two months after she was allegedly raped by a powerful politician from Lalu Yadav's RJD, a schoolgirl in Bihar's Nalanda appeared for her Class X boards. And passed.
This weekend, she was shattered again when her alleged attacker, lawmaker Raj Ballabh Yadav, walked out of prison on bail granted by the Patna High Court.
The 15-year-old sent a frantic WhatsApp message to journalists and others hoping to reach Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. "He (Yadav) is out of jail... I am scared and afraid for my family. What will happen to them? I am already dead after what happened to me. I have nothing more to lose," she wrote.
The politician, the girl said, "can kill me and my family any time. Even the police are afraid of him."
The Nitish Kumar government has asked the Supreme Court to cancel Raj Ballabh Yadav's bail, days after it had moved the top court against bail for Mohammad Shahbuddin, another member of the RJD, which partners Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United in governing Bihar.
Opposition party BJP has accused the state government of not pursuing cases against politicians linked to Lalu Yadav effectively ever since he joined hands with Nitish Kumar to return to power in last year's assembly elections.
Raj Ballabh Yadav was suspended by the RJD soon after an arrest warrant was issued for him in February. He had surrendered after a month on the run.
Yadav, who represents the Nawada constituency in the Bihar Assembly, was accused of raping the minor in Bihar Sharif, about 70 km from capital Patna, on February 6 this year.
The girl told the police that she was taken by a woman neighbor to an undisclosed location, where she was raped by a man, later allegedly identified as Yadav. She said the woman later offered her Rs 30,000.
Yadav was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and his bail petitions were repeatedly rejected by a lower court, until he moved the High Court, which granted him bail last week.
The Supreme Court will hear the plea against bail on Friday.