Security personnel forcefully stopped the complainant in the Unnao rape case and her family members from protesting in Delhi on Tuesday and Wednesday against the High Court granting bail to the convicted former Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar, reported NDTV.

The High Court on Tuesday suspended the life sentence of Sengar and directed him not to travel within a five-kilometre radius of the complainant’s home.

Hours after the judgement, the complainant, accompanied by her mother and activist Yogita Bhayana, staged a protest at India Gate against the bail. However, they were dragged and forcefully removed from the protest site, showed videos circulating on social media.

They were detained at the Kartavya Path police station for around an hour, reported the Hindustan Times.

On Wednesday morning, the complainant’s mother alleged that the Central Reserve Police Force stopped her and her daughter from protesting at the Mandi House.

She also allegedly jumped from a moving CRPF-escorted bus while the complainant was inside, reported NDTV.

“We did not get justice,” the mother was quoted as saying. “My daughter has been held captive. It seems they want to kill us. CRPF men took the girl and dropped me on the road.”

She further alleged: “We were going to protest, but the CRPF men forcibly took her away. We were going to Mandi House to protest.”

In December 2019, Sengar was convicted and sentenced to life for raping a woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao in 2017. She was a minor at the time.

In March 2020, Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his brother Jaideep Singh Sengar, among others, were sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for the killing of the woman’s father in judicial custody.

Sharing a video of the police dragging the complainant away from the India Gate, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asked in a social media post if “such treatment of a gangrape survivor” was appropriate.

He said that Kuldeep Singh Sengar being granted bail was “extremely disappointing and shameful – especially when the survivor is being repeatedly harassed, and is living under the shadow of fear”.

“Bail for rapists, and treating survivors like criminals – what kind of justice is this,” he said.

Meanwhile, the complainant told PTI that the High Court’s decision was “no less than death” for her.

“If the convict gets bail in cases like this, how will the country’s daughters remain safe?” she asked.

She also said that she would challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court.

As part of his bail conditions, the High Court told Sengar to furnish a personal bond of Rs 15 lakh with three sureties of the same amount, and to report to the police every Monday at 10 am.

Despite the order, he remains in prison for the killing of the complainant’s father.

While sentencing Sengar to life imprisonment in 2019, the trial court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take adequate steps to ensure that the life and liberty of the complainant are protected.

The woman and her family had been placed under the protection of the Central Reserve Police Force after an order from the Supreme Court in 2019. The court had noted at the time that there was a threat to the lives of the complainant, her mother and her lawyer, among other persons.

This came after the woman and her lawyer were severely injured in a car crash. Her family had alleged that Sengar was behind the accident. Two of the woman’s relatives, one of whom was a witness in the rape case, were killed.