Uttar Pradesh police have registered a case of gang rape against a BJP lawmaker and six others, including his sons and nephew, following a complaint from a widow who said she couldn’t take their blackmail any longer.

A senior police officer in Bhadohi confirmed that a case had been lodged on Wednesday against MLA Ravindra Nath Tripathi and the others.

“The case was registered against the Bhadohi MLA and others on the complaint of a woman on Wednesday.

She has stated in her complaint that Sandip Tiwari, nephew of the MLA, had promised to marry her and then raped her initially. She has also mentioned the names of the MLA and others for gang-raping her at a later stage,” Bhadohi superintendent of police Ram Badan Singh said.

“We have formed a team to probe the allegation and take action accordingly,” the officer added.

The victim, who is from adjoining Varanasi, told local reporters the blackmail and the exploitation began after she fell into the “trap” of the lawmaker’s nephew.

“I was working in Mumbai at that time. The nephew of the MLA promised to marry me and invited me to Bhadohi, where he confined me in a hotel room and raped me. Then, the MLA, his two sons and the others gang-raped me,” she said.

She didn’t explain in what circumstances she had been trapped and how they had blackmailed her.

“I decided to register the complaint against them when they didn’t stop blackmailing and exploiting me regularly,” she added.

The victim has requested the police to go through the 2017 client register of a hotel in Bhadohi and said that would prove her allegations.

Tripathi said he had never met the woman.

“Some of my political rivals are behind this case. They are using the woman as a tool. I and my family members will come clean in a police inquiry,” the BJP MLA told reporters in Lucknow.

“I have never met this woman.'

A BJP spokesperson said: “Some local party leaders had brought this case to the knowledge of our state chief Swatantra Dev Singh. We all are waiting for the probe report of the police.”

The victim, who appeared to be in her late twenties, also claimed that the MLA had threatened her through his henchmen and would kill her and her parents if she approached the police.

“I will try to meet chief minister Yogi Adityanath if the police delay action against the MLA, his family members and his goons. Any delay would be dangerous for me,” she said.

The police have provided security to the victim.

A Delhi court had in December last year jailed for life a BJP lawmaker, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, for raping a 16-year-old girl in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, in June 2017.

Months earlier, a truck had crashed into a car the Unnao victim was travelling in, in what appeared to be a bid to eliminate her. The victim survived but she and her lawyer were injured, while two of her aunts died.