DHAKA: Indian right-wing party also government ally Shiv Sena Saturday said filing sexual assault charges has ‘become a fashion’ in an article backing a police officer accused of rape.

The hardline nationalist outfit, a key ally of prime minister Narendra Modi’s government based in Maharashtra state, threw its support behind a senior state police officer who has been accused of rape by a model and questioned the victim's intentions.

‘Cases of charging men with molestation and rape in hi-fi (high) societies to create hype is on a rise now. It has almost become a fashion,’ the hardline Hindu nationalist outfit wrote in its mouthpiece, ‘Saamana’ (To Confront).

‘After he has served for so many years in the police force, one model now charges DIG (deputy inspector general) Sunil Paraskar with rape and in one night he becomes a villain’, it added.

BDST: 1649 HRS, AUG 02, 2014