3 convicted for life in the auto gangrape case

A Chandigarh court on Friday awarded life imprisonment until natural death to three men held guilty of gangraping a 22-year-old Dehradun woman on November 17 last year.

Earlier this week, Additional district and sessions judge Poonam R Joshi had held autorickshaw driver Mohammad Irfan and his accomplices Mohammad Garib and Kismat Ali guilty of gangrape .

Charges were framed against the three under Sections 376 D (gangrape) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. The DNA of all three had matched with that of the victim, confirming the crime.

Mohammad Irfan is also accused of raping a 21-year-old call centre employee in December 2016. His arrest earlier this year led to the unveiling of his involvement in other rape cases, including the auto-rickshaw gangrape case.

The victim, originally from Dehradun, stayed in a rented accommodation in Mohali and was returning home from her typing classes in Sector 37 in Chandigarh at night. She boarded the auto-rickshaw which already had the three accused, including the driver in it.

The auto driver reportedly drove towards the forest area in Sector 53, where the three raped her. The images of the accused were caught in a CCTV camera installed at the Sector 42 petrol pump where the accused had stopped to get the fuel tank refilled.

Irfan, the auto driver was the first one to be arrested on November 24 and had named the other two. The duo was arrested the next day in Uttar Pradesh. Previously, the police had announced Rs 1 lakh reward for information on the accused.