JAIPUR: A Delhi Police team tasked with arresting Rajasthan cabinet minister Mahesh Joshi’s son Rohit on charges of rape and blackmail returned empty-handed from Jaipur on Sunday after pasting a notice at his family home, asking him to show up at the capital’s Sadar Bazar police station latest by 1pm on Wednesday.
Rohit’s father told reporters at his Civil Lines residence that he learned about the Delhi Police team’s visit through news channels. On whether his son would respond to the notice, the minister said this would depend on legal advice.
“Nobody from the police has contacted me yet. I have already said that I stand for truth and justice. I follow the law. If Delhi Police contacts me, I will give answers to their queries. I will cooperate in the investigation,” Joshi, the PHED minister in Ashok Gehlot’s cabinet, said. The minister declined to respond to queries on his son’s whereabouts.
Rohit has been named in an FIR filed by a 24-year-old woman, accusing him of rape after spiking her drink during an outing last year. She had apparently met Rohit on Facebook and accompanied him and his friends to Sawai Madhopur on January 8, 2021. He allegedly assaulted her there and took pictures and videos that he later threatened to release. She accused him of blackmailing and assaulting her on several occasions thereafter.
The woman said she kept quiet for more than a year for fear of landing in further trouble as Rohit’s father was a minister.
The case filed at Delhi’s Sadar Bazar police station on May 8 and was registered under sections 376 (rape), 328 (causing hurt by means of poison), 312 (causing miscarriage), 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage), 377 (unnatural offences), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the IPC.
Before returning from Jaipur, the Delhi Police team visited the complainant’s house, sources said. Jaipur Police wouldn’t confirm if the Delhi cops sought their assistance in locating Rohit.
