LUCKNOW, May 12: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Minister Nepal Singh, a member of Mayawati's cabinet in Uttar Pradesh is under fire for allegedly shielding a professor of Hindu Degree College who has been accused of sexually exploiting one of his students. The harassed girl later hanged herself.Shalini Dayal, a post-graduate student of chemistry, committed suicide in her Moradabad house on April 1. A note recovered from one of her books on April 29 revealed that the reason for the suicide was persistent sexual exploitation by Dr SK Kulshesthra, a professor in the Hindu College.The 21-year-old girl claimed in her suicide note that BB Sharma, a laboratory assistant in Hindu College, had suggested Kulshesthra's name to her as she had wanted to take some private tuitions. Her family members, on the other hand, had initially thought that her poor performance in the examinations was the reason for the suicide, but later claimed that she had spoken to the professor on telephone on April 1 before ending her life.The Moradabad police arrested Sharma in view of the massive public unrest which erupted soon after the suicide note was discovered, but Kulshesthra was not touched apparently due to pressure from Nepal Singh who is also a professor in Hindu College.Earlier, Kulshesthra has been accused of sexually harassing another student, Anshu Mehrotra, who too committed suicide in 1990. He was even jailed in that case.However, this time the police swung into action and arrested Kulshesthra only on May 4 and that too after the agitation took a political turn and effigies of Kulshesthra and Nepal Singh, known for his proximity with senior BJP leader Kalyan Singh, were burnt. Kulshesthra, meanwhile, has reportedly confessed to sexually assaulting Shalini.The incident has also exposed the schisms within the Moradabad unit of the BJP. Another party MLA, Sandeep Agrawal, angry at police inaction, threatened to resign from the Vidhan Sabha. Agrawal along with other local MLAs, JP Singh and Saulat Ali, have vowed to raised the issue during the next Assembly session.Though Nepal Singh was unavailable for comments, sources close to him claimed he was innocent. ``Its all political vendetta by a group of leaders within the BJP opposed to Nepal Singh. Singh never liked Kulshesthra and both were against each other in college politics,'' they claimed.The Nepal Singh camp accused Agrawal of trying to malign the Minister because Agrawal was not accomodated in the Mayawati Cabinet. Agrawal, incidentally, is a close relative of Vishwa Hindu Parishad general secretary Ashok Singhal.
