A former BJP leader, Pramod Gupta, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court on Thursday in a 2008 case of gang rape of a Dalit girl. A relative of the victim, Ashok Kumar, was awarded 10-year jail by the Additional District and Sessions Judge for having facilitated the crime on April 19, 2008.
Ashok Kumar lured the girl to a hotel on Rajpur Road on the pretext of a meeting with an official who would get her government job.
There Gupta and a few others raped her.
The Congress, then in the Opposition, staged several demonstrations seeking action against Gupta.
“The verdict has come as a victory of a poor girl over a powerful demon. It will serve as a deterrent to those who feel that they could get away with anything on the strength of their power or wealth,” said activist Renu D. Singh, with whose help the rape survivor is now pursuing law.
The Samadhan Dalit Women’s Helpline and rape crisis intervention centre, of which Ms. Singh is chairperson, not only convinced the girl to pursue higher studies but also got her married to a boy of her own choice in her community at a function attended by parents and relatives from both sides.
This article has been corrected for an editing error.
