The CBI on Friday dropped murder charges against former BJP lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his associates in its first chargesheet relating to the highway crash that injured the Unnao rape complainant and killed two of her aunts, officials said.

The chargesheet, filed before a special CBI court in Lucknow, charges Sengar and nine other accused with criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation. The FIR had also mentioned murder and attempt to murder.

Sengar, the Bangermau MLA now expelled from the BJP, and his henchmen allegedly gang-raped the complainant in 2017, when she was purportedly a minor.

She was grievously injured last July 28 when a truck collided with the car she was travelling in with her lawyer and aunts.

Truck driver Ashish Kumar Pal has been charged with causing death by negligence, causing grievous hurt, and rash driving but not criminal conspiracy, officials said.

Last month, former BJP Union minister Swami Chinmayanand, accused by a woman of blackmailing and raping her, was charged with molestation, criminal intimidation and sexual exploitation but not rape.