Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan has told a woman who was allegedly raped, not to try and find “popularity in such a thing of infamy and shame”.

Mr Khan made the comment during an event on Thursday in Kanpur where the woman had come to urge the urban development minister to hasten police investigation.

At the event, when the woman, allegedly raped in a moving car four months ago tried to raise the matter, Azam Khan snapped back saying: “Agar aap badnami ko itni shohrat dengi, toh zamane ko apni shakl kaise dikhayengi? (If you rake up such a shameful matter, how will you have a face to live in the society?).”

As the woman carried on saying that the culprits were roaming free and she was receiving death threats, the minister said he did not actually know what the matter was.

Azam Khan went on to say he would take the memorandum from the “behan jo halla kar rahi hain” (the sister who is creating such a ruccus), and added that she had, however, “got her two minutes of fame by raking up the issue.”

The crowd began whistling and clapping at the minister’s statement, forcing the woman to beat a hasty retreat.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lashed out at the minister for his remarks and demanded that Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav “either by his silence endorse his minister’s statements or sack him”.

“Azam Khan throughout his political career has hit headlines for all the wrong reasons. It is high time that the Samajwadi Party leadership take a call on him and clamp down on his irresponsible statements,” BJP’s state spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.

Pictures of a white-bearded policeman purportedly sitting on the lap of a woman Special Police Officer (SPO) in a police station in Rajouri district has gone viral on social media, prompting authorities to suspend him.

Two pictures were posted in Facebook and WhatsApp in which Head Constable Zakir Hussain was seen sitting on the lap of a woman SPO who was seated on a chair in Budhal in Police Station.

“The incident took place in August this year. Soon after the pictures came to our notice, we have suspended the Head Constable namely Zakir Hussain posted at Police Station Budhal and attached him to the District Police Lines for this shameful act,” said AK Atri, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) of the Rajouri-Poonch Range.

A probe has been ordered and action has been initiated against the woman SPO and others of the department involved in the act, he said.

There is zero-tolerance to such shameful acts in police, the DIG said.

A day after Rahul Gandhi’s high-voltage charge against PM Modi, disgruntled BJPMP Shatrughan Sinha fired another salvo, hailing the Congress vice president as a “rising star”

The actor-turned-politician praised the Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance’s big win in the state polls in a series of tweets, congratulating it hours before the oath-taking ceremony.

“It has been the victory of democracy. I wish the new government led by Nitish babu, Laluji and rising star Rahul Gandhi great success,” the Patna Sahib MP tweeted on Thursday night.

Sinha’s meeting with Nitish Kumar after the poll results were declared raised many eyebrows within the party, who saw it as an open act of defiance.

“I welcome Nitish “Susashan” Babu, messiah of development as CM of Bihar & congratulate Laluji, leader of masses for massive victory in Bihar,” said another tweet by Sinha, who added that “despite his best intention”, he will not be able to attend the swearing-in ceremony at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on Friday.

Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Rajiv Pratap Rudy are expected to represent the BJP at Nitish Kumar’s swearing-in. Sinha mentioned the two in another tweet. “Appreciate Centre’s gesture of deputing my friend Venkaiah Naidu and few other small leaders to attend swearing-in ceremony of Nitish Babu,” he said in another tweet.

On Wednesday, Sinha had dared the BJP to act against him and RK Singh, the BJP MP from Arrah. “RK Singh, former Home Secretary and a proud Bihari ‘sher’ is right. No one has the guts or the DNA to give us a ‘phatkaar’ (reprimand),” he had tweeted.

Singh had accused the BJP of selling tickets and giving them to criminals in the Bihar elections, calling it the main reasons of the party’s debacle.

Sinha had claimed the Bihar poll results could have been different for his party had he been projected as the chief ministerial candidate.

“I am not bragging, but I do feel that when the darling (laadla) of Bihar people, the dhartiputra (son of the soil) and the original ‘Bihari babu’ was deliberately sidelined, it definitely had an impact on my supporters and fans. I can’t say how much difference it could have been, but I can definitely say, some difference would have been there. We could have definitely got more seats than what we got,” he told a news channel.