A fast track court, here on Saturday sentenced all the four accused in the sensational gang-rape case to life imprisonment till death.
The four men stood silently as additional district and sessions judge Savita Dube delivered her verdict. Handing out the life sentence till natural death, sessions judge Savita Dubey said Section 376 (d) and 376 (m) (n) (2) provides for life sentence till the accused is dead.
The four accused — Golu Bihari, Ramesh, Raju and Amar — had abducted and gang-raped a civil service aspirant near Habibganj police station on October 31 when she was returning from a coaching class in MP Nagar, the commercial hub of the city, in the evening.
The gang-rape in the heart of the city and subsequent delay in lodging of FIR in connection with the incident had led to severe public outrage. Not only the State Government constituted a committee of top police officials to look into the matter but Madhya Pradesh High Court also took suo moto cognizance of the case and ordered day-to-day hearing in the case.
After initial goof up, police filed a charge-sheet in the case in a fortnight and the case was disposed of by the sessions judge in a little over one month after hearings in the case began on November 18.
The woman was raped near the railway station when she was returning home after attending a coaching class on October 31.
The survivor, daughter of a police couple, had to make rounds of different police stations to get her complaint registered as the police initially refused to lodge an FIR, citing a jurisdiction issue.
After a public outrage over the delay in the registration of the FIR, five police personnel were suspended, while three others, including two IPS officers, were transferred.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up by the Madhya Pradesh police to investigate the crime.