A Bharatiya Janata Party leader, along with three others, allegedly gangraped a woman in Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh, the police said on Sunday, reported PTI.

Shahdol Additional Superintendent of Police Mukesh Vaish said the woman was abducted in a four-wheeler, forced to drink liquor in a farmhouse in Gadaghat area and then gangraped on February 18 and 19. “On February 20, the four accused dumped her in front of her house,” he added. “She filed a police complaint on Sunday.”

“The accused have been identified as BJP’s Jaitpur mandal president Vijay Tripathi, a school teacher, Rajesh Shukla, and two locals – Munna Singh and Monu Maharaj,” Shahdol Superintendent of Police Awadesh Goswami told the Hindustan Times. “The accused are absconding.”

A first information report was registered against them under sections 363 (abduction) and 376 (d) (gang rape). The police are investigating the matter and trying to track them down, Goswami added.

Meanwhile, the woman was first taken to Jaitpur health centre and then shifted to the district hospital, where she is said to be in a critical condition.

The woman’s family, too, blamed Tripathi and “his men” for the crime. “They kidnapped her in a car after gagging her,” an unidentified relative of the woman told NDTV. “When we lodged a complaint, they dumped her outside the house.”

After the news of Tripathi being named as one of the accused broke out, the BJP issued a release announcing that he had been removed from the party.

“The BJP has no place for such workers involved in heinous crimes,” the statement said. “The BJP strongly deplores such a character and crime. Thus, taking disciplinary action, it sacks Vijay Tripathi from the post of Jaitpur BJP president and membership.”