The Allahabad High Court has granted interim anticipatory bail to Quavi Ahmed, the son of former Samajwadi Party MLA Saeed Ahmad, in a case registered under various sections of IPC including 376 (rape) and sections 3, 5(1) (attempt of forceful conversion) of Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, alleging attempt to convert forcefully by misrepresentation.
While granting interim anticipatory bail to Quavi Ahmad, Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh has fixed January 7, 2022 as the next date of hearing and also directed the state government to file a reply (counter affidavit) in the case.
On September 13 this year, an FIR was registered at Civil Lines police station of Prayagraj against Quavi Ahmad under various sections of IPC alleging assault, loot and rape and under UP’s anti-conversion law.
The woman alleged in the FIR that she was preparing for Miss India competition and used to run a gym in Civil Lines. In 2018, she came in contact with Quavi Ahmad, who befriended her by changing his name. The accused took her to Lucknow on the pretext of opening a beauty parlour where he exploited her sexually after giving her sedatives. He made obscene videos of her and started blackmailing her.
On September 12, 2021, the accused attacked the woman in the Civil Lines area of the city and chased her with a pistol, threatening to kill her. He also looted a gold chain and her mobile. To save her life, the victim ran into a police post after which she lodged the present FIR.
The petitioner’s plea was that ‘false allegations’ were made in the FIR to pressurize him as he and the woman, who is complainant in the case, had business relations, which went sour with the passage of time and they started facing losses in the business.
SP leader Saeed Ahmad, ex-MLA from Phulpur, himself has been charged previously for defrauding Rs 95 lakh from a hotelier, Sardar Joginder Singh, in a land deal that took place in 2007. Initially, Singh was turned away by police, but in 2014 court ordered the FIR to be registered and a non-bailable warrant was issued in November 2016 against Ahmad. But he still refused to turn up for police questioning or court hearings. Ahmad was finally arrested in August 2017, just months after the Yogi Adityanath government was sworn in, but not before he faked a medical condition in a last-ditch attempt to evade arrest.
Saeed Ahmad is currently out free, and the status of the cheating case is not known.
(With IANS inputs)
