The Mahila Court, Thanjavur, on Monday, awarded life sentence till death to four persons found guilty of raping a woman in Kumbakonam on December 1, 2018.
According to police, the victim, a 27-year-old woman from New Delhi, arrived in Kumbakonam on the night of December 1 to attend a training programme as part of her job. She took an autorickshaw on Kamarajar Salai to reach the lodge, where she had booked a room. On the way there, she called a friend when she suspected that the vehicle was taking the wrong route. The autorickshaw driver asked her to alight from the vehicle on the bypass road. Subsequently, the woman started walking along the bypass road where she found two persons on a motorcycle and sought their help to reach her destination.
However, the duo took her to a secluded place on the Nachiyarkovil bypass road and called two other friends to come to the spot. All four sexually assaulted her and one of them took her in an autorickshaw from the Nachiyarkoil road to drop her at the place from where she was picked up. But when the vehicle reached the fish market area in the town, the youngster called up his friends on the mobile phone of the autorickshaw driver and asked them to come to the bus stand area. Later he alighted from the vehicle after directing the autorickshaw driver to drop the woman at a nearby lodge.
Upon alighting from the vehicle at the lodge, the victim noted down the autorickshaw number and next day morning she narrated the events to her friends. Subsequently, her parents were informed about the incident and they rushed in and lodged a complaint with the police.
The police identified the autorickshaw driver based on the vehicle registration number produced by the victim and later traced the four culprits – Dinesh (26), Vasanthkumar (23), Purushothaman (21) and Anbarasan (21) – and arrested them. Upon further investigation, the police had also identified the autorickshaw driver, Gurumurthy (26) who had picked up her from Kamarajar Salai near the Railway junction and left at bypass road earlier.
After hearing the case, the Mahila Court Judge, Ezhilarasi on Monday awarded life sentence till death to all the four accused and seven years of rigorous imprisonment to Gurumurthy for leaving the woman at an unsafe place.
