Duo to spend 10 years in jail for raping 12-year-old

LUDHIANA: A local court has sentenced two persons to 10 years rigorous imprisonment for the gang-rape of a 12-year-old girl. The court of additional sessions judge Jagdeep Kaur Virk also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on the two convicts, and in default of payment of fine, they will have to further undergo a simple rigorous imprisonment for six months each.
On January 18, 2013, Daresi police had booked three accused, aged 20, 18, and a juvenile under sections 376(2)(g) of the IPC for gang-rape of a 12-year-old. The survivor’s father said he was a rickshaw-puller with three children, and the survivor was the middle child, studying in class 3. He said he was called by his daughter’s school teacher a day prior to the incident and was told to keep a vigil on her as she had a mobile phone. He brought his daughter home from school along with her mobile phone.

But in his absence, his daughter took out the sim-card from the mobile phone, and after destroying it, threw away the card. Later on, one phone number was traced from her note book. The girl’s teacher made a call on the number, and the recipient (the 20-year-old accused) disclosed his name. The teacher then told the girl’s father that some wrong act might have been committed on his daughter. This aroused the father’s suspicion who came to know that his daughter was suffering from stomach-ache but had not disclosed it to him. Later, he sent his daughter with his sister to a hospital for medical check-up, where doctors disclosed that she was pregnant.

When he asked the survivor about the entire incident in presence of his sister, the girl disclosed that two months ago, three boys residing in their locality, had committed gang-rape on her in a room constructed in the graveyard, which was in the compound of a temple. They had also threatened her that in case she informed him about the incident to anyone, they would kill her brother. Out of fear, she did not disclose the incident to anyone. Her father then lodged a police complaint on January 18, after which Daresi police registered a case. Police later arrested the three accused, one of whom was a juvenile, and produced a challan against two of them (who were majors) in the court.

During the trial of the case, both the accused pleaded false implication, with defence claiming that the father of the survivor did not like the fact that she used to talk to one of the accused. Additional public prosecutor for the state however pleaded for punishment of the accused on the basis of prosecution evidence — including statements of the survivor, her father, aunt (father’s sister), and principal of her school, among others — and documentary evidence. The defence counsel, on the other hand, pleaded that one had never heard of any occurrence of rape in the compound of a temple as alleged by the complainant, and had the incident taken place, it might have come to everyone’s knowledge. He said the accused were being falsely implicated. He also contended that the survivor was a smart girl who knew how to use her mobile phone without her father’s knowledge, and her friend used to talk to her boyfriend from her mobile.

The judge said that the fact that the girl kept a mobile without her father’s knowledge was insignificant, and did not refute the fact that the accused had committed rape on the minor.