Kuldeep Sengar Gets 10-Year Jail For Murder Of UP Rape Survivor's Father

Expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 2018 murder of the father of a teen girl he raped in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao the year before. His brother and co-accused, Atul Sengar, has been handed a similar term. A Delhi court has also ordered the brothers to pay Rs 10 lakh each to the family of the Unnao rape survivor.

"The victim lost her father. She can't return to her home. There are four kids in the family... three of them are girls...all four are minors," District Judge Dharmesh Sharma said this morning while delivering the judgment in Delhi.

'There can be no denying that rule of law was broken. Sengar was a public functionary and had to maintain the rule of law. The way the crime has been committed, it does not call for leniency," the judge added, according to news agency IANS.

The court handed down the same sentence for two policemen charged with criminal conspiracy for falsely implicating the father in a case; the cops were out on bail.

In August last year the court had framed charges against Kuldeep Sengar and the others for assaulting the girl's father and framing him in an Arms Act case. A country-made pistol was planted on him and he was beaten up at the police station, the judge said.

It was "part of a larger conspiracy to deter, silence and prevent the father from pursuing the complaint" in the rape case, he said, pointing out that his body bore multiple severe injuries.

The judge also said that even though Kuldeep Sengar was in Delhi at the time, he was in touch with Unnao cops. The father was picked up from the roadside, taken to a police station and beaten up, he added.

The rape case, which made international headlines, came under the scanner after the girl - after running from pillar to post for justice - tried to commit suicide outside Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's home.

The next day, April 9, 2018, her 55-year-old father died while in custody at a local hospital.

He had been admitted hours before his death with complaints of stomach pains. At the time, his face bore multiple bruise and lacerations. A postmortem report said he died due to blood poisoning from a perforated intestine. It also listed 14 bruises all over his body.

Earlier during a routine medical check-up before he went to jail - conducted at the same hospital - he had named Atul Singh, one of those who had been accused and has been sentenced, as his attacker.

Kuldeep Singh Sengar had already been "sentenced to undergo imprisonment for the remainder of his natural biological life" in the Unnao rape case, as per the sentence handed down in December last year. He had also been ordered to pay Rs 30 lakh to the family of the rape survivor.

With input from IANS