New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh Police and Special Task Force team on Tuesday detained three more associates in connection with gangrape case against Samajwadi Party leader Gayatri Prajapati.


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According to media reports, two sons of Prajapati have also been arrested by the police for providing shelter to the absconding rape-accused minister. 


So far, the Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested at least six people in the case but Prajapati is still at large. 


According to another report, Prajapati's gunman had surrendered himself before the police in Lucknow whereas the state police managed to arrest the minister's sons from Noida. 


Moreover, Prajapati, who contested the state assembly elections from Amethi constituency on Samajwadi Party ticket, performed poorly in the polls and lost the seat to his nearest rival and BJP nominee Garima Singh.


Prajapati is a senior Samajwadi Party leader close to both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav and is the party candidate from Amethi.


As Akhilesh went twice to campaign for him in the recent held Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Opposition leaders have been targeting the Chief Minister, and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his campaigning took potshots at the state government on the issue.


The 49-year-old minister is facing imminent arrest following an FIR lodged against him and six of his accomplices on the apex court order at Gautampalli police station in the capital on February 18 under various sections of the IPC and POCSO Act. Gautampalli police station in the capital on February 18 under various sections of the IPC and POCSO Act.


The alleged offence was first committed in October 2014 and was repeated till July 2016, but when the accused tried to molest the minor daughter of the victim, she wrote to the state DGP in October 2016, requesting the officer to take action.


But when her complaint to the DGP went unheeded, she moved the apex court for justice.


Prajapati had been sacked by the chief minister in 2016 during the family feud with his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and uncle Shivpal Yadav but was later reinstated in the council of ministers.


Prajapati is also accused of patronising the illegal mining mafia when he was the mining minister and a probe has been ordered by the Allahabad High Court in this matter.