A Delhi court on Friday awarded imprisonment for entire life to all five convicts charged with raping a Danish woman in the capital in 2014, saying they had “levelled a stigma on the face of the country.”
However, Additional Sessions Judge Ramesh Kumar absolved them of the obligation of paying compensation to the victim because of their poor economic conditions. Instead, he directed the Delhi Legal Services Authority to consider a suitable compensation to the victim.
Rejecting the plea for a lenient punishment by counsel for the accused, the judge said: “They do not deserve any leniency. She had been subjected to such inhuman act continuously for five long hours, and during this period she was given beatings when she tried to save herself. Accused persons did not show any mercy when she was asking them not to rape her as she had AIDS.”
“Hence, considering the conduct and act of all the convicts… I am of the opinion that the ends of justice would be met if the convicts — namely Mahender alias Ganja, Mohammed Raja, Raju Bhajje, Arjun and Raju Chhaka — are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of convicts’ natural life,” the judge said, sentencing the convicts as per the submission by Special Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava.
The Delhi Police had charged the accused persons with robbing and gang-raping the woman at knife point after dragging her to a deserted place near the Divisional Railway Officers’ Club which is located about a few hundred metres from the New Delhi railway station.
Three juveniles involved
There were a total of nine accused, including three juveniles, in the case who were charged with gang-raping the woman, but one of the adult accused died at the fag end of the trial.
The juveniles are facing inquiry before the Juvenile Justice Board. It was also a different case from other rape cases as there was an eyewitness to the assault on the woman.
