Haridwar: Police have arrested another woman in last year's alleged false rape case against Shantikunj chief Dr. Pranav Pandya in Uttarakhand's Haridwar. As per officials, Haridwar Kotwali Police has arrested the accused woman Hemlata Sahu, who was absconding, from Karnataka, taking the total number of arrests in the case to six.
Earlier, non-bailable warrants were issued by the court against her. A police team led by female sub-inspector Kiran Gusain arrested Hemlata Sahu, a resident of village Parsada, in the Arang district of Raipur, on the basis of her mobile phone location from Husnawali in Karnataka. The case dates back to May 2021, when a woman from Chhattisgarh had filed a rape case against Dr. Pranav Pandya, the head of Shanti Kunj Haridwar at Vivek Vihar police station in Delhi.
Also read: Shantikunj false rape case: Chandrakala Sahu arrested
The woman had alleged that Pandya raped her during her stay in Shantikunj in 2010 while Pandya's wife Shail Bala threatened her to keep mum. After this trial, various allegations and counter-allegations were made. When the FIR was transferred to Haridwar, the police investigated the matter and found all the allegations against Pranav Pandya to be false in its final report.
The court again ordered an investigation into the false allegations. When the police interrogated the victim, she said that Manmohan, the former servant of Shantikunj, had pressurized her to make false allegations against Pandya. Police registered a case on the complaint of the victim and the accused Manmohan along with Hargovind, Toshan Sahu, Chandrakala Sahu, And Sunita Sharma was arrested in the case.
