Lucknow, June 15 (IANS) The Faizabad sessions court Sunday remanded former Uttar Pradesh minister and Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) legislator Anand Sen Yadav in judicial custody till June 28. After months of evading the law, Yadav, 45, surrendered at the Ghazipur police station here Saturday evening following his alleged involvement in the November 2007 kidnapping and murder of Shashi, a Dalit woman from Faizabad.

He was then arrested and produced in a Faizabad court Sunday. He has been lodged at the Faizabad district prison.

Yadav had to resign as minister of state for food processing in the wake of Shashi’s rape and killing.

Before presenting him in the court, the Faizabad police also interrogated him at an undisclosed location. “However, we could not extract any useful information from him,” Senior Superintendent of Police (Faizabad) R.K.S. Rathore told IANS.

According to officials, the police would soon move an application in the court to seek a police remand for him for further interrogation.

Shashi, a 24-year-old third-year law student in Faizabad, went missing Oct 22. After recovery of her wrist watch, which was found from the Gomti river in Sultanpur, the police suspected she was murdered, though her body is yet to be found. Her parents had confirmed that the watch belonged to her.

In a first information report (FIR), Shashi’s father Yogendra Prasad accused Anand Sen Yadav’s distant relative and driver Vijay Sen of the crime. Seema Azad, a classmate of Shashi and believed to be close to Yadav, was named as the other accused. She was arrested June 8.

Yadav’s name figured as a suspect in the charge-sheet filed in the court on the basis of narco analysis tests conducted on Vijay Sen.