Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), March 24 (IANS) Former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) parliamentarian Narendra Kumar Kushwaha, accused of raping a party worker in Madhya Pradesh, has not been arrested for that crime but is undergoing treatment for a bullet injury, the police said Monday. “Since he is wanted for the rape case in Madhya Pradesh, we have informed officials there that if they wish to arrest him they can do so. But at the moment he is undergoing treatment in Sonebhadra (in eastern Uttar Pradesh) for a bullet injury and is not under arrest or detention,” Superintendent of Police (Sonebhadra) Ram Kumar told IANS.

Kushwaha told the police Saturday that his licensed revolver misfired and he was injured in the left leg. The incident took place around 7.30 p.m. and he was taken to Sadar Hospital.

“The injury is superficial. And he has a valid license for the .32 bore revolver,” Kumar said.

Kushwaha was reportedly inebriated when the revolver went off, but Kumar said doctors have not yet given a medical report to corroborate this.

It was rumoured that the former MP beat up his wife just before injuring himself. But she gave a written statement to the police that she got hurt when she fell from the terrace.

“Since she has given a statement, we did not investigate the matter further,” Kumar said.

The police in Madhya Pradesh have been looking for Kushwaha for the past one month ever since a non-bailable arrest warrant was issued against him for allegedly raping a BSP worker in Sidhi.

Kushwaha, who was MP from Mirzapur, was expelled from parliament in 2005 in connection with the cash-for-query scandal, where 11 MPs were secretly caught on camera while taking bribes to ask questions in parliament.