Rejecting a plea for lenient punishment, a Delhi court has awarded life imprisonment to three persons till their natural life for gang-raping a visually challenged woman on the pretext of serving her food in 2015.
Identified by voice
The court held Beeru, Islam and Ramesh guilty on the basis of evidence by the victim. She had identified the accused in the courtroom on the basis of the tone of their voices heard during commission of the crime.
“The prosecutrix has categorically testified that during their conversation at the time of occurrence of the crime the accused persons named each other Beeru, Islam and Ramesh alias Pindari. It is on the basis of their voices heard by the prosecutrix during the commission of offence she identified them in court. She had identified the accused persons during investigation on the basis of their voices,” Additional Sessions Judge Ramesh Kumar-II said in his judgment.
‘Brutal acts’
‘Considering the gravity and manner of commission of offence, and horrifying and brutal acts of the accused persons it is required to impose substantive and stern sentence that would commensurate with the gravity of offence. In view of the matter, I am of the view that ends of justice would only be met if all three convicts, namely Beeru, Islam and Ramesh alias Pindari, are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of the convicts’ natural life,” the judge said.
The court also sentenced them for kidnapping and criminal intimidation.
False pretext
“The prosecution has successfully proved the guilt of all accused persons with cogent and clinching evidence, that all three convicts committed a heinous crime of gang rape on a hapless blind lady. Instead of helping her, they dishonestly induced her to accompany them to serve her food and took her to a deserted place, and they all in furtherance of their common intention committed gang rape on her,” the judge said while convicting the trio.
According to the prosecution, the three men had lured the victim to a deserted place on the pretext of providing her food and gang-raped her. The woman was enquiring at a railway station here about trains going to Dehradun, where she studied at a school for the visually challenged.
