Chandigarh, March 26: A Punjab BJP leader has been arrested for allegedly raping his daughter for eight years.

Ashok Taneja, 40, a general secretary of the party unit in Ajnala, Amritsar, was arrested late last night after his 20-year-old daughter complained to police that she had been sexually exploited by her father.

The girl apparently plucked up the courage to go to the police after reading about how a Mumbai businessman had been arrested for raping his daughter.

Taneja, booked for rape, has been admitted to a hospital in Ajnala after he complained of chest pain.

The girl, a student of Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, told officers her father had threatened to kill her if she tried to resist or inform anyone. In her complaint, she said her father abused her whenever she was alone at home.

The Amritsar superintendent of police (rural), Satpal Joshi, said the girl was accompanied by her mother when she filed her complaint. “It was only after reading about the arrest of the Mumbai businessman that she gathered the courage to tell her mother and said she too wanted her father punished,” Joshi said.

A few days ago, businessman Kishore Bachhubhai Chauhan was taken into custody in Mumbai for raping his daughter for nine years on the advice of a tantrik who said it would bring prosperity to the family. His 21-year-old daughter approached the police after Chauhan tried to rape her 15-year-old sister too, again on the tantrik’s advice.

An officer investigating the Ajnala case said: “We are trying to find out if any relative or friend had any knowledge of what was happening and whether any tantrik or godman was involved.”

The girl, the police said, was “very disturbed” and had been advised to go and live with her maternal relatives in Amritsar.

Taneja, who has a son, owns a grocery store in Ajnala. He claims he has been framed after some domestic disputes and has also blamed political rivals.

On the day of Chauhan’s arrest, an Austrian named Josef Fritzl was handed a life sentence for raping his daughter for 24 years.

Fritzl, 73, who fathered seven children through daughter Elisabeth, admitted enslaving and raping her for 24 years and murdering one of their babies by neglecting to seek medical treatment.