Kuldeep Sengar’s daughter Ishita alleges 8 years of harassment after Supreme Court blocks bail

Ishita Sengar, daughter of former BJP MLA and Unnao rape case convict Kuldeep Singh Sengar, has said she is “exhausted, frightened and slowly losing faith” after the Supreme Court stayed a Delhi High Court order that had suspended her father’s life sentence and granted him bail.

In an open letter posted on X on Monday, Ishita Sengar said her family had endured eight years of humiliation for her father's alleged crime, harassment and social abuse while trusting the legal system to examine the case on its merits.

‘We waited quietly for eight years’

Addressing the letter to the “Hon’ble Authorities of the Republic of India,” Ishita Sengar wrote that her family chose silence out of faith in institutions, only to be repeatedly ignored.

Her letter reads:

"To
The Hon’ble Authorities of the Republic of India,

I am writing this letter as a daughter who is exhausted, frightened, and slowly losing faith, but still holding on to hope because there is nowhere else left to go.

For eight years, my family and I have waited. Quietly. Patiently. Believing that if we did everything “the right way,” the truth would eventually speak for itself. We trusted the law. We trusted the Constitution. We trusted that justice in this country does not depend on noise, hashtags, or public anger.

Today, I write because that faith is breaking.

Before my words are even heard, my identity is reduced to a label—“the daughter of a BJP MLA.” As if that erases my humanity. As if that alone makes me undeserving of fairness, dignity, or even the right to speak. People who have never met me, never read a single document, never looked at a single court record, have decided that my life has no value.

Over these years, I have been told countless times on social media that I should be raped, killed, or punished simply for existing. This hatred is not abstract. It is daily. It is relentless. And it breaks something inside you when you realise that so many people believe you do not even deserve to live.

We chose silence not because we were powerful, but because we believed in institutions. We did not hold protests. We did not shout on television debates. We did not burn effigies or trend hashtags. We waited because we believed that truth does not need spectacle.

What did that silence cost us?

We have been stripped of our dignity piece by piece. We have been abused, mocked, and dehumanised every single day for eight years. We have been drained financially, emotionally, and physically running from one office to another, writing letters, making calls, begging to be heard. There is no door we did not knock on. No authority we did not approach. No media house we did not write to.

And yet no one listened.

Not because the facts were weak.
Not because the evidence was lacking.
But because our truth was inconvenient.

People call us “powerful.” I ask you what kind of power leaves a family voiceless for eight years? What kind of power means watching your name dragged through mud daily while you sit silently, trusting a system that seems unwilling to even acknowledge your existence?

What scares me today is not just injustice, it is fear. A fear deliberately manufactured. A fear so loud that judges, journalists, institutions, and ordinary citizens are all pressured into silence. A fear designed to ensure that no one dares to stand with us, no one dares to listen to us, and no one dares to say, “Let us look at the facts.”

Watching this unfold has shaken me deeply. If truth can be drowned so easily by outrage and misinformation, where does someone like me go? If pressure and public frenzy begin to overshadow evidence and due process, what protection does an ordinary citizen truly have?

I am not writing this letter to threaten anyone.
I am not writing this letter to gain sympathy.
I am writing because I am terrified and because I still believe someone, somewhere, will care enough to listen.

We are not asking for favour.
We are not asking for protection because of who we are.

We are asking for justice because we are human.

Please let the law speak without fear.
Please let evidence be examined without pressure.
Please let truth be treated as truth even when it is unpopular.

I am a daughter who still believes in this country.
Please do not make me regret that faith.

Respectfully,
A daughter still waiting for justice (unedited)"

To
The Hon’ble Authorities of the Republic of India,

I am writing this letter as a daughter who is exhausted, frightened, and slowly losing faith, but still holding on to hope because there is nowhere else left to go.

For eight years, my family and I have waited. Quietly.…

— Dr Ishita Sengar (@IshitaSengar) December 29, 2025

Supreme Court stays bail, cites ‘peculiar facts’

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the operation of the December 23 Delhi High Court order that had suspended Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s life sentence and directed that he shall not be released from prison in connection with the 2017 Unnao rape case.

A three-judge vacation bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices JK Maheshwari and AG Masih passed the order while hearing a plea filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

“We are conscious of the fact that when a convict or an undertrial has been released, such orders are not ordinarily stayed by this court. But in view of the peculiar facts where the convict is convicted for a separate offence, we stay the operation of the Delhi High Court order,” the bench said.

Sengar remains in jail as he is also serving a 10-year sentence in a separate CBI case related to the custodial death of the rape survivor’s father.

CBI opposition, survivor’s family response

During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI, described the case as a “very horrific” instance of child rape and argued that Sengar, who was an MLA at the time of the offence, occupied a dominant position over the victim, warranting stricter punishment under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

The bench also flagged concerns that excluding legislators from the definition of “public servant” under POCSO could result in legal immunity for MPs and MLAs.

Kuldeep Singh Sengar, an expelled BJP MLA from Unnao, was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2019 for raping a minor under the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act.

Meanwhile, the rape survivor’s mother welcomed the Supreme Court’s order, saying it renewed her hope that her daughter would receive justice.

The Supreme Court has issued notice to Sengar and directed him to file his response within four weeks. The matter is listed for hearing in the last week of January.