The Delhi High Court Thursday upheld the life imprisonment awarded to three persons in an unusual case in which a minor was girl gang-raped when she sought help from passersby after being raped by a relative.
The case dates back to 2011 when the minor girl was taken to a place by her relative on the pretext of giving some gift and was raped. After the incident, the girl managed to escape and some men in a car offered her help and assured her to safely drop at her house.
However, they took the girl, then a student of class 10, to a jungle and gang-raped her. A trial court had awarded life term to the three men.
The three men challenged their conviction and sentence before the high court which dismissed their appeals and upheld the trial court's judgement.
"In the present appeals as regards...(first convict) is concerned, he owed a fiduciary relation with the victim and asserting the said relationship he tricked the parents of the victim to send the victim with him so that he could avail of a gift in name of his daughter from the company, which gift was never to be given. Thus in a very preplanned manner taking advantage of his relationship he brought the minor victim to his house and committed rape," a bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal said.
Regarding the other two convicts -- Vinod Kumar and Praveen Kumar -- the bench said after assuring the girl to safely drop her at her house, they along with a co-accused, who was declared a proclaimed offender, took her to a jungle area and gang-raped the victim who ran out of their clutches using courage and presence of mind.
"Considering the manner in which the offences were committed by the appellants, this court finds no error in the impugned order on sentence, directing the appellants to undergo life imprisonment. Appeals are accordingly dismissed," the bench said.
-With PTI Input
