A day after they accused former MLA Ashok Vir Vikram Singh alias Bhaiyya Raja of making sexual advances at their daughter, parents of Vasundhara Bundela said they faced a threat to their lives.

Vasundhara, a 21-year-old student of fashion designing, was murdered in cold blood. Her body was found on Bhopal's outskirts on December 11 and the police have arrested Bhaiyya Raja and five others in connection with the sensational murder.

Mrigendra Singh and his wife Bharati met Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Home Minister Umashankar Gupta on Monday and alleged that they faced a threat to their lives from Bhaiyya Raja, even though he is behind bars.

The Home Minister said he had asked the DGP to provide security to them. An armed guard was provided to the couple in Bhopal and security will be provided to them when they return to Chhatarpur.

Before the police arrested him on December 20, Bhaiyya Raja's wife Asha Rani, who is BJP MLA, had met Vasundhara's parents asking them not to name her husband.

Vasundhara is grandniece of Bhaiyya Raja, who is the maternal uncle of Mrigendra Singh, a practising advocate in Chhatarpur.

Singh said he had defended the former legislator in some criminal cases.

"He is characterless. He has ruined several lives but I never thought he would turn to his own family members," the advocate said, adding that he would present to the police evidence of the 60-year-old's other wrongdoings. "He is a notorious criminal and would do everything to influence and intimidate us," Mrigendra Singh said, adding that he sought police protection to ensure that "we are around to depose during trial. Otherwise he would go scot-free again."

The advocate said after his parents' death he looked up to the legislator giving him all the respect. A couple of years ago, Vasundhara confided in her mother that Raja made advances and would insist that they met when no one was around. The victim recently had an abortion in Indore.

Vasundhara's mother said she did not suspect Bhaiyya Raja's son because she had nursed him as mother. "He used to call me mother," she said of Bhaiyya Raja's son, who was one of the persons present in the Kolar Road bungalow. Vasundhara, who used to live in a girls' hostel in M P Nagar, had spent the night before her murder at the bungalow.