A court in Delhi on Saturday asked the Delhi Commission of Women to help the family of the Unnao rape complainant in finding accommodation, PTI reported. The district judge gave the order during in camera proceedings of the case after the woman’s lawyer told the court that house owners were unwilling to give homes on rent to the family even for a short duration due to the case.

The court asked DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal to form a team of two counsellors, who will make arrangements for the family’s accommodation for at least 11 months. The Unnao rape case was listed for further hearing on September 30.

The Unnao rape complainant was discharged from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi last week. She had been there since being airlifted from Lucknow for treatment in August, weeks after she was involved in a car crash.

The district court had on Wednesday asked her lawyer to make arrangements for the woman and her family to stay in the capital. The complainant’s family had said that they wanted to move to Delhi due to the threat to their lives in their village.

The court of District Judge Dharmesh Sharma also asked the lawyer to submit details of all the expenditure incurred to the court along with the lease agreement and rent to be sent to the Uttar Pradesh government.

Following the court’s directive, Maliwal said she will assign a team that will take care of the family’s accommodation. “We are thankful to the court for directions for accommodation and rehabilitation of the victims,” she said, according to PTI. “We will assign our team tomorrow itself to arrange accommodation for the Unnao victim and her family.” The chairperson also said that the commission will begin the rehabilitation process of the complainant and said she was a “brave fighter”.

Meanwhile, the district court also asked American company Apple Inc to provide details of expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s location on the day he allegedly raped the Unnao complainant. The court gave the company time till October 9 after it sought two weeks to identify and access the required data, unidentified lawyers claimed.

Apple Inc’s counsel said that they would also need to decide how they would share the information with the court. To this, the district court said that the data can be provided along with an affidavit that contained a certificate from the system analyst or an authorised company official.

The woman has accused Sengar of raping her in 2017, when she was a minor. The expelled BJP MLA has been in jail since April 2018 in connection with the rape case. The complainant and her family had alleged that the car crash was orchestrated by the former BJP leader.

On July 28, a truck collided with the car in which the 19-year-old was travelling in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli district. Two of her aunts, one of whom was a key witness in the rape case, were killed. The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, gave 15 more days to the Central Bureau of Investigation to complete its investigation into the car crash.

Also read:

The Daily Fix: Is Unnao case going to play out yet again with rape-accused BJP leader Chinmayanand?


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