A man, who repeatedly sexually assaulted a woman by confining her for nine months and gang-raped her with his two associates, has been sent to jail for 30 years by a city court. The court held Uttar Pradesh resident Shiva guilty of gang-rape, rape, wrongfully confining the 30-year-old, causing hurt and criminal intimidation and said, “The crime committed by the convict was intensely grave, odious and serious in nature”.
The court made it clear that Shiva will first undergo imprisonment of 10 years for rape, criminal intimidation, wrongful confinement and causing hurt and thereafter the sentence of 20 years rigorous imprisonment for the offence of gang-rape will begin. “The prosecution has also established that the accused had been giving beatings to the prosecutrix regularly and issuing threats to her not to disclose the incidents of forcible sexual intercourse to anybody else. However, there is no evidence on record to support the charge under Section 377 (unnatural offence) of the IPC framed against the accused,” Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said. The other two associates of Shiva could not be arrested.
The court, however, rejected the woman’s claim that she was kidnapped by Shiva, who was known to her, in a train when she was travelling with her husband and children from Kanpur to Raebareli. “It would not be possible for a person to carry a lady in an unconscious state from a railway station between Kanpur and Raebareli up to Delhi without being noticed by any person including police officials,” the judge said.
At the same time, it said merely because the evidence led by the woman indicates that she may have gone to Shiva voluntarily does not necessarily imply and construe that she had gone there to enjoy sexual relations with him. “The reason for the woman to leave her husband and children could have been something else, may be a marital discord etc.”